


Forgiven

by Wolkemesser



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Ghirapur (Magic: The Gathering), Kaladesh (Magic: The Gathering), M/M, Multi, Post-Forsaken, Ravnica (Magic: The Gathering), Zendikar (Magic: The Gathering)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 90,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolkemesser/pseuds/Wolkemesser
Summary: Disclosure: This fic acknowledges the events of Forsaken and aims to minimize the worst of its footprintNissa and Chandra carry on with their lives in the wake of a bitter encounter in War of the Spark: Forsaken, and try to continue their work to make the multiverse a better place. Yet despite the challenges in their day-to-day heroics, they cannot help but think of each other...
Relationships: Chandra Nalaar/Nissa Revane, Exava/Lavinia (Magic: The Gathering), Jace Beleren/Vraska, Tomik Vrona/Ral Zarek
Comments: 36
Kudos: 46





	1. Nissa

_**Mover…** _

…

_**Mover…!** _

Nissa awoke to a voice beyond worlds.

A blanket slipped from her shoulders as she half-rose from her cot, and she shuddered, wracked by a chill. Morning mist, sunlit and slow, drifted into her small tent; she’d slept later than she meant to.

_**Something is stirring in the waters.** _

A voice from an unseen speaker wasn’t particularly unusual in of itself. Nissa had heard the voice of Zendikar in her dreams and in the waking world for years, and ever since sparking she’d discovered a dozen ways a world might speak. Still, so few of them used words the way Emrakul did.

_**Mover, the pieces of the others have been disturbed. What remains of my companions are coming this way.** _

Nissa took a half-second to process what the voice had said, then leapt up from her cot.

The tent flap gave way to a small copse of trees, surrounded by rolling hills to one side, and wetlands to the other. Off to the southeast, the high, sagging shape of the Sea Wall loomed.

_**The south; they’re coming from the south.** _

“I could have guessed that,” Nissa muttered. Even without Emrakul whispering from inside her skull, the approaching spawn would have been impossible to ignore. Despite their reduced numbers and coordination, they still made Zendikar’s leylines itch like a rash. A rash that that was festering badly in the direction of the Halimar inland sea.

Nissa started off at a sprint, stopping only long enough to stoop and collect her staff. She preferred to camp a distance from the other Zendikari, who were working on the restoration of the Gate and the surrounding land. It meant peaceful nights, but now left her a good mile from the source of the itch, and a whole ruined city full of potential victims.

_Boom_

Nissa stumbled, but her momentum carried her forward in a rapid clip of flailing steps. Something in the direction of Sea Gate had made a sound like a small explosion. Nissa couldn’t feel any distinct disturbance in the leylines to accompany the sound, but the source, whatever it was, sent tremors through the air.

Nissa mounted a shattered hillside, still riddled with the bismuth scars of Kozilek’s passage. The ground beyond writhed. In the distance, pouring across the landscape from the direction of the sea, a horde of smaller eldrazi and spawn squirmed. Like a carpet of maggots they poured over the rolling ground. The biggest came no higher than Nissa’s waist, but she hadn’t seen such a large gathering of the creatures since before she’d bound Kozilek and Ulamog to the plane.

Since before they had burned.

Speeding down the hill, Nissa reached out to Zendikar, calling for a soul beneath the grasses.

The ground ahead shifted. A trio of saplings bent toward the earth, then shot back up, dragging gouts of dirt along with them. Stone and roots laced through the soil, forming tendons and limbs as a broad-chested figure of wood and earth burst from the hillside to join Nissa at a run.

Ashaya. Nissa’s elemental ally.

_Danger._ Ashaya spoke the thought not through words, but through the feelings of the land. _Danger ahead._

Nissa grabbed Ashaya’s arm, and the elemental swung her up and onto its shoulder, just as they met the front wave of Eldrazi. Several tried to scale Ashaya immediately, and the elemental pounded them back into the turf with root-woven fists. Another Eldrazi leapt over the blows, and made it to Ashaya’s chest before Nissa split its skull with her sword.

Emrakul made sound like a sigh, full of irritation. Nissa ignored it.

The eldrazi's corpse dropped to the ground, and Nissa braced herself for a second attack. None came. All around her, eldrazi were streaming past, ignoring her and Ashaya, except to duck out of the way of the elemental’s massive fists. The horde of spawn scampered off further north, seemingly uninterested in anything but getting away from the inland sea.

Nissa watched, dumbfounded. There were no occupied settlements in the immediate path of the swarm, and, given their past behaviour, the sheer concentration of living targets back at Sea Gate should have been the greatest draw. So why…?

Another _boom_ shook the air, and Nissa jolted back around to face the Wall.

Something was falling...no... _f_ _lying_ , straight towards the ground at an angle. Right below the flying speck, something else, trailing a thin line of...smoke? Rising to meet it, clear against the blue sky.

The two objects collided.

The sound was not deafening by any means, but the sea gate was far away, and even without touching the leylines, Nissa could feel a shockwave. Just a bare whisper of a breeze, but that was from almost a mile out.

_Danger._

Nissa nodded, and Ashaya lumbered forward, ignoring the thinning rush of Eldrazi swarm around. They ignored Ashaya in turn.

_**Our pieces do not flee easily.** _

Nissa just grunted in response.

_**There is danger in whatever lies ahead.** _

“There are lives in danger up ahead,” Nissa hissed.

_**There are. It is, of course, your prerogative to see them safe.** _

“Well, thank you for that.” Nissa lay a hand on Ashaya’s shoulder, and the elemental picked up speed. Ashaya’s pace was more ponderous, but its strides were long enough that it covered the ground in half the time it would have taken Nissa, and let her catch her breath.

The ground Nissa passed was a patchwork of desiccated earth and darker, greener patches of tall grass and sapling trees. She’d spent the better part of the last month working around the inland sea, helping to replenish the land the city’s inhabitants depended on. Working life back into the plane. Certain stretches of Zendikar were responding frustratingly slowly to the rehabilitation efforts, but Nissa dashed across far fewer spots of dusty grass and twisted, rainbow-hued stone than she would have a week prior.

_Boom._

The objects in the sky collided again. And again. Sometimes the sound was near deafening, and sometimes they seemed to collide and separate with no sound at all. They weaved among the hedrons and close enough the to Sea Gate to make Nissa flinch. Ashaya continued on without pause, its own footfalls shaking the earth.

As she approached the Sea Wall, Nissa could make out the objects more clearly. They were figures, humanoid and thin, clashing in mid-air with weapons drawn.

“SORIN!”

A scream from above echoed off the hedrons and across the hills. It had come, unmistakably, from one of the figures. Sure enough, as Ashaya neared the wall, Nissa recognized the black attire and pale color of Sorin, her ally and antagonist of adventures past, grimly crossing swords with a kor who Nissa was sure she recognized from somewhere-

_**The binders.** _

There was neither inflection nor increased intensity to Emrakul’s sudden exclamation, but there was an edge, in the same way a knife slicing across your ear had an edge.

A massive crowd had pooled out about the base of the Sea Wall, with many more figures pouring out from the ladders and exits carved into the stone. Refugees. Builders. Warriors. Children. Some who were a mix of all these. Faces turned up to the top of the wall in fear and panic.

“What are you going to do about this??”

A kor, long-bearded and bald, was shouting up at another group of figures descending from the top. Vampires, carrying workers and scholars down from the Sea Gate ruins.

“What am _I_ going to do, Munda?” The foremost of the vampires stared down her nose at the kor while she grappled with a pair of panicked goblins, one under each arm. “I’m quite fine where I am, not getting crushed between those maniacs. Why don’t _you_ get up there?”

Drana. Munda. Nissa was glad to see familiar faces. Ashaya ambled over to them.

Munda was waving a hook up in Drana’s direction. “That’s one of your vampires, isn’t it? Take some responsibility!”

“And the other one is a kor, you ass. Are _you_ going to take responsibility for _her_?”

Munda just grit his teeth.

“Sounds awfully stupid when you put it that way, doesn’t it? That screamer up there isn’t even from here.” Drana paused, and turned toward Nissa, who had pulled up alongside Munda. “But look, we’ve got a slayer of monsters right here at our fingertips.” She gave a bow in the air, dropped the goblins to the grass, and raised a hand up toward the duel. “Worldwaker. More of your alien friends?”

“Nissa.” Munda nodded, voice gentle despite the deep grimace carved into his face.

“What happened?”

Munda waved a hand up toward the sky. “The vampire came out of nowhere just before daybreak. Started pulling spawn out of the sea with some kind of blood magic.”

“Then one of the lithomancers threw herself off the wall like a madwoman,” Drana added. “And turned out to be some kind of stone-flinging demon. They’ve knocked a dozen hedrons out of the sky and blown a new hole in the sea-side of the wall.”

“Why isn’t anyone trying to stop them?” Nissa flinched as the flying kor screamed Sorin’s name again. “What if they bring down the rest of Sea Gate?”

“ _That_ is why we evacuated the city,” Drana hissed, gesturing towards the workers, all still eyeing the sky nervously. They were standing in the shadow of the wall, with the sea on the opposite side, and the fight was mostly out of sight.

“They’re too high up,” Munda grunted. Most of the warriors here are just standing useless on the ground, and...well there aren’t enough of our flying allies on hand to deal with...that.”

On cue, a chunk of the white marble flew off the top of Sea Gate, and arced toward the ground. Drana and her companions moved immediately to intercept it, but the rock reversed course in mid-air and shot back up over the other side of the wall.

“Lithomancer,” Munda muttered. “She’ll tear the wall apart if this goes on too long.”

Ashaya was already pounding toward to the wall, Nissa crouched and tensed on its back. With a thought and pulse of green mana she drew up the earthworks around the wall into a ramp, and Ashaya sprinted up the steepening slope, roots digging into the dirt until it was running near perpendicular to the ground.

Nissa scrambled onto Ashaya’s chest, and leapt. Ashaya stretched out, and vines shot skyward from its hands and face, snagging onto pits and holes left in the stone by the eldrazi.

Nissa climbed up this makeshift ladder, from vine to vine, from handhold to handhold. Large portions of the wall were pitted where impacts had broken the rocks, and other sections were still twisted from the blows Kozilek had dealt to the structure. The stone was cool and rough under her palm, and tore at Nissa’s skin. She left small handprints of blood on battlements as she vaulted over the top of the wall.

Though shattered, remnants of the city of Sea Gate still stood in places, a testament to the endurance of the Zendikari on their turbulent world. Among the pitted flagstones and crumbled structures there still stood towers from before the emergence, and hastily-abandoned tents of the rebuilders.

Fire pits squatted everywhere along the wall, smoldering and abandoned. A guard dog barked somewhere out of sight. Dwellings in various states of demolition and repair loomed above Nissa as she strode forward toward the water.

The entire sea spread out beyond the far side of the wall, sapphire-blue and melting into the sky at the horizon, where the sun welded water and air together in white rays of the rising sun. The waters had been slow in returning to the basin, but the Noyan Dar and his roilmages had helped coax the sea back into the void left by the battles with the Eldrazi. From the battlements a whole panorama of hedrons filled the sky and waters, though more than a few had considerable chunks missing from them-

_**Mover.** _

A dark shape flew down, inches from Nissa’s face, to descend parallel to the wall. White and dark leather. It must have been Sorin-

_**Beware the binders, mover.** _

Nissa flinched back from the battlement just in time to dodge a flurry of stone blades, hot on Sorin’s trail. Half of the sharp swords embedded themselves in the stone. The rest banked in the air like birds, looping in flight before rushing down the sea-side of the wall.

Nissa leapt up on the battlement and peered down toward the waters. The kor was standing with feet planted flat to the stone, body perpendicular to the wall, as if gravity didn’t apply to her. Sorin was flying straight up along the wall, sword outstretched, pointed straight at his foe. The stone blades sped past the kor, down toward Sorin’s face.

With a twist of his body, Sorin spun into the flurry of weapons. His sword knocked each of the blades aside, and he bowled into the Kor, shoulder-first. She put her own sword between them, but Sorin’s momentum carried them both up, and their bodies shot up past the top of the wall. Nissa fell back and rolled into a crouch on the flagstones, watching them rise. She could feel Emrakul observing the fight. Wordless, but with that insistent edge pressing into Nissa’s skull.

Sorin lashed out with a thrust, and the two combatants sprang apart. Each landed heavily to either side of Nissa, maybe thirty yards to the left and the right.

Each rose from a crouch and glared across the wall at each other. If either registered Nissa’s presence, they gave no sign of it.

“Stop this!” Nissa called. “Sorin! The both of you!”

They only roared in response, and charged at each other, blades-first.

“We’re trying to re-build!” Nissa roared. “You need to stop!”

Their feet left the ground. The Kor rocketed forward, a stone sword glowing hot in front of her. The heels of her boots (also stone?) glowed the same. Sorin was flying, sword pulled back for an overhead strike.

Nahiri, Nissa thought, the name coming to her uselessly at that moment. The kor was called Nahiri. She’d been on Ravnica.

_**Mover. Stop them moving.** _

Nissa rose.

The fighters converged where Nissa stood with a sound like a thunderclap, and a rush of stone grit.

When the debris settled, their blades had still not met. Nissa clenched Sorin’s wrist in a tight grip, holding it above his head. Nahiri’s sword she had met with her own animist blade, and even now the kor grunted, straining to push Nissa aside.

“Enough! What are you two doing?”

“Elf!” Sorin roared. “Leave! This isn’t your fight!”

“And this isn’t your world, Sorin. Why are you here?”

“Yes, Sorin,” Nahiri hissed, still trying to work her blade past Nissa’s vine-laced sword. “Why _are_ you here? Come to ruin Zendikar a second time? I told you I didn’t want to see your face again.”

Sorin sneered and tried to pull his arm back. Nissa held him fast. He grimaced, let his wrist go limp, and dropped his sword.

Nissa released him.

“If I never have to see you again, Nahiri, it will be too soon.” Sorin adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. “I’ve spent a long time trying to make up for my mistakes with the eldrazi, and I don’t intend to stop just because it irks you.”

“Bull.” Nahiri disengaged with Nissa, letting her own sword to clatter against the ground. She reached into the battlement, her fingers sliding into a suddenly white-hot patch of stone. As she withdrew her hand, a blade slid into being like hot wax poured out into an unseen mold. “It’s been six millennia since you did anything even remotely selfless. Why should I believe you want anything good for my home?”

“I’m not the one pulling it apart piece by piece,” Sorin spat back. “You brought a beast to ravage my home and left me stuck in a rock.”

“You started it.” Nahiri lunged with her new sword. Sorin responded in kind, unarmed. This time, Nissa didn’t move a muscle to stop them.

Instead, Ashaya struck.

Nissa had left the elemental lurking just out of sight behind the rubble of a shattered tower. With a thought from Nissa, Ashaya split in two and flowed forward like twin vipers, each half engulfing one of the two duelists in vines and dirt. Sorin and Nahiri roared in protest as vines lashed them in place onto living mounds of root and earth.

“Now you’re _both_ stuck,” Nissa sighed. She looked between them, each suspended several feet off the ground. “And we will stay here until I am convinced you won’t do more harm if I let you free.”

“Why would _I_ harm Zendikar?” Nahiri roared. “ _I’ve_ been protecting this plane – I’ve protected it for centuries longer than you’ve been alive!” She pulled against the vines, but they held fast.

“You’re harming rebuilding efforts right now.” Nissa pointed to the crowd on the ground below. “Look at them. Terrified. We’ve just fought off two eldrazi. Please don’t make us fight you as well.”

“I...I...” Nahiri grit here teeth. Her voice broke with the strain, and she hung her head. “I just want to help. This is my _home._ ”

“Then help. It’s my home too.” Nissa spread her arms at her side. “And the home of all those people down there, frightened for their lives. If you say you want to help, join us. We need to heal now, not fight.”

“Not with _him_ here.” Nahiri glared past Nissa, at Sorin. “I gave him a chance to help me, and he stuck me in a damned void full of demons. He was ready to let our home _die_ _._ ”

Nissa spared a glance and a raised eyebrow in Sorin’s direction. He looked away.

She sighed, reached out to the pillar that held Nahiri. The vines loosened, and the pillar slanted, so that Nahiri slid gently to a crouch on the stone.

“He did come back.” Nissa knelt and put a hand on Nahiri’s shoulder, to keep her from rising and attacking Sorin. “He came back to try and keep them sealed. He was cruel and callous in his execution,” Nissa added with a small scowl, “But he wants the multiverse to be safe, just as we do...even if he didn’t go about it the right way.”

Nahiri’s eyes flickered from Nissa to Sorin. Her shoulder muscles remained tensed, but she didn’t make any move to rise.

“ _I_ broke the last hedron holding the eldrazi back. Before that, three others loosened the magic that held them imprisoned. They were fooled into fighting one another at Akoum by Bolas.”

Nahiri’s eyes narrowed. She started to say something, but Nissa pushed herself to keep talking.

“I had a part in it. We were, many of us, duped and bullied into letting loose the titans on Zendikar. If you wish to be angry with anyone, be angry with me as well. I deserve some part of your bitterness, but I promise I will keep doing what I can to make our home whole again.”

“As will Sorin,” she added, throwing a look over her shoulder. He met her eyes this time, and didn’t glare.

“You?” Nahiri’s whisper was angry, but horse. Weary.

“Me.” Nissa could feel Nahiri’s heaving breath shudder through her shoulder. “I doomed millions by misjudgment, just as surely as you doomed thousands with your vengeance, and Sorin doomed just as many by his negligence.” Nissa pursed her lips, then added, “Please don’t make the same mistake again. I don’t want to see any more of us tear our worlds apart with rash choices.”

Nahiri nodded, slow, brow furrowed. She opened her mouth, closed it slowly, then burst into sobs.

Each cry was dry, coarse, and long, and her face contorted into a different sort of grimace. Nissa almost withdrew her hand, but that didn’t seem like the right thing to do. It wasn’t what Gideon would have done, at least with someone who needed comfort.

Nahiri looked as though she needed comfort.

“Every hand is welcome if it means to heal our world.” Nissa murmured in her ear, gently. “We can send him somewhere else. Ondu needs help just as much as Tazeem does.”

“No!” Nahiri started, and leapt to her feet. Nissa let her rise, but kept a hand on the kor's shoulder.

“I...if he has to stay, I want him where I can keep my eye on him.” She glared through her tears, but did not make to attack Sorin.

Nissa released Nahiri’s shoulder. Her palm was sweating under her glove, and her stomach felt scratchy with discomfort from the touch.

Sorin coughed, and nodded at his own bindings. “Do you think…?”

Nissa gave a mental nod to Ashaya, and the column of dirt collapsed around Sorin. Soil flowed down his hair and clothes, and he had to shrug off the vines that now hung slack around his shoulders.

“Lovely,” he grunted. “You’d think killing my entire family would be vengeance enough, but I can’t even offer-”

Nahiri growled, and Nissa shot an angry glare toward Sorin. He shut his mouth, the rest of his words unsaid.

“Why are you here?” Nissa tapped her staff to the ground, and Ashaya pulled itself together from the debris on the flagstones, looming just over Sorin’s shoulder. He eyed it warily, but made no move to pick up his sword. “How specifically did you plan to help?”

Sorin’s lip curled. “However. Wherever.” He turner, looking at his sword, though he made no move to pick it up. “I…my plans for assisting are fluid.”

“Don’t you have your own plane to clean up?”

_**Clean up** _ **?**

Nissa winced. The edge was pressing insistently on her mind. She slowed her breathing, and it eased by degrees.

“I’ve done what I can for Innistrad.” Sorin fidgeted with the collar of his jacket, then, with a grunt, peeled it off entirely. Dirt fell in a small shower from the folds of leather, and rolled along the stones to rejoin with Ashaya. “My family is gone. My angels are almost completely annihilated, and the ones that remain, Sigarda’s host, want nothing to do with me. The Voldarens and the Falkenraths have put out a bounty-”

“I didn’t ask.”

Sorin scowled. “And I’m not asking permission. There are still eldrazi here, and more corners to this plane than its inhabitants can comb. I can root them out. I can help.”

Nissa put her staff between Sorin and herself. “I’m not convinced the hurt you cause by being here is worth your help.”

Dark eyes stared back at Nissa, but Sorin said nothing. They stood there for almost a full minute, eyes locked, until Nissa’s stomach started to feel scratchy again.

Thankfully, Sorin dropped his gaze first, And Nissa turned away to attend to Nahiri.

“It’s because I didn’t act.”

Nissa turned on her heels. “What?”

“Everything...the eldrazi, Zendikar, Innistrad...the dragon, Bolas. I left my allies and shut myself up on one world.” Sorin knelt and picked up his sword. “ _Centuries_ I wasted while worlds were destroyed, and I thought I could keep one of them safe by ignoring it all. I can’t go back to living like that. I won’t make that mistake again.”

His face was set, and Nissa couldn’t deny the conviction of his words. But most of all, standing there covered in dirt, his armor battle-worn and shoulders slumped, he looked sad. Pitiful and alone.

“My homeworld is not here for your catharsis, Sorin,” Nahiri didn’t make any move against Sorin, but he couldn’t have missed the glowing spots in the stone at her feet. “It’s not here to make you feel better about your...your failures.”

Sorin opened his mouth to argue, but not a word came out. He bit down on his lip and looked away, out toward the sea.

“I agree.” Nissa tapped her staff on the flagstones for emphasis. “This is a serious matter for us, and even more so for the Zendikari who have no world but this.”

Sorin’s lips pursed.

“But I’ve never known Sorin to be anything other than serious.” Nissa gave Nahiri as gentle a look as she could muster. “I’m sure your experience with him has been the same. He will serve at our direction, and when he fails to do so, he will be made to leave.” She turned to stare Sorin down as she said that last, waiting until he met her eyes. He did so after a minute, but only held Nissa’s gaze a moment before turning to Nahiri. They watched each other with apprehension, and something else Nissa couldn’t quite place.

“We were friends once,” Sorin said at last. “I don’t imagine we can ever be again, but you know we can accomplish much if we cooperate. You have my word you will have my cooperation.”

Nahiri didn’t respond. Didn’t even nod. She just stood, turned, and walked off toward the largest shattered section of the gate. Loose chunks of stone from atop the wall rose up in her wake and followed after her, glowing faintly with a growing heat.

The other two watched her as the stones came together, sealing shattered sections of wall and filling in small sections of the gaping wounds in the flagstones. Nissa let out a breath, louder than she would have liked, and leaned against the re-formed Ashaya.

“How can I help?” Sorin asked, softly. He had folded up his jacket and set it aside on the parapet. “I’m not quite the mason our lithomancer is, but I can swing a hammer.”

“You’ll start by helping bring the workers and refugees back into their city.” Nissa kept her face turned away. There would be lots of talking today, and the less she had to look at anyone just then, the better. “Then you will follow me to the northwest. Your fight sent a small army of Eldrazi spawn tearing across the countryside. Less trouble for the builders here, I suppose, but more danger for anyone north of us not expecting it. You’ll come with me and we’ll eliminate the swarm before they do too much damage. You get to help, and someone keeps an eye on you. Problems solved.”

Nissa looked around at the surrounding Sea-gate. Shattered towers. A gaping pit in the middle of the city. Yet among the ruin sprouted tents and small structures, new in their construction.

“We’ll remain for the day,” She decided. The swarm is directionless now, and I’m done chasing after things to kill at the expense of helping recovery efforts.”

_**They’re just pieces,** _ Emrakul was chided, gently . _**Wi** **th their movers destroyed, they’re beneath your notice.** **Fire has burned away what made them formidable.** _

Nissa closed her eyes, teeth grit in frustration. A chill rocked her shoulders, and she grabbed at her arm, involuntarily.

“Is something the matter?” Sorin ventured.

“Nothing, just cold.”

“If you say so.”

A silence passed between them, and Nissa suddenly wished herself far away. Somewhere where there was ground to be tended. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere not so crowded...

“You didn’t have to take so much blame,” Sorin muttered. “For the titans coming free. Like you say, my approach could have been….could have been better.”

“I know you don’t think me blameless,” Nissa returned, quietly. She let her eyelids slide open. Nahiri was staring at her from distance, stones still whirling around her. There was a different look on her face. Not angry, but intense. Suspicious?

“I don’t. Still.” Sorin slid his sword back into its scabbard. “I appreciate you speaking with her.”

“We have to start healing at some point,” Nissa sighed. “I’m going to tell the others their home is safe again. Don’t do anything to prove me wrong in the meantime.”

*** * ***

Most of the zendikari were happy to return to work and to their homes once the fight had settled down. Others required at least a little prompting to re-ascend the wall; thankfully Drana and Munda were both naturals when it came to corralling crowds.

“Most of the warm bloods have gotten used to us,” Drana sighed with a long sniff of the air, after her fourth trip ferrying goblin masons up the wall. “But they still move a little faster if you flash a fang at them now and again,” she added, giving Nissa a smirk and a wink.

Nahiri’s talents proved a great boon through the day’s labor, even among the other lithomancers on hand. The eldrazi attacks had left the inner structures of Sea Gate filled with tons of rubble, which kicked up large choking clouds of dust whenever the restoration workers shifted a pile. Nahiri was able to shape many of the larger pieces into construction-usable blocks and move them to where they were needed without disturbing the precariously damaged walls.

Sorin worked slower, but steadily, helping the other vampires carry workers and building materials from site to site along the wall. He took orders and gave responses with visible irritation, but made no open complaint.

Nissa kept an eye on both her fellow planeswalkers while she tended to what matters she could atop the wall. The scarred hills and woods beyond called to her, but there were plenty of gardens that needed tending in the city. So shefilled stone trenches with soil to grow fruit and vegetables for the citizens while the fields were un-fallowed, and coaxed the roots of trees transplanted up onto the streets of Sea Gate, to add a bit of green and lift the zendikari spirits.

At regular intervals, spotters along the inside of the gate reported more smaller eldrazi and spawn fleeing the sea. Few enough for archers to dispatch from the wall, or for the warriors assisting reconstruction at the base to slay with relatively little danger to themselves. The spawn seemed undirected and attacked like wounded animals now, instead of unfathomable predators.

_**Not even pieces any more. Limbs of pieces of limbs.** _ Emrakul shuddered, ever so slightly, every time spawn emerged and perished. _**Fingers full of firing nerves, no longer part of any body.** _

Nissa took a rest from the trees to sit, nodding absently to the titan’s words. Emrakul never sounded anything Nissa would call _sad_ in her mind, but it was full of a kind of regret. But what was there to say? There was no apology to give something that had caused so much death, no matter its intentions.

“What do you want?” Nissa asked suddenly, surprising herself as much as the nearby workers, thinking they were being addressed out of nowhere. “From the people here? From the people of Innistrad? The reactions haven’t been anything you wanted on any world, so why keep doing what you do?”

_**I do not want. I expect. Worlds could be so much better than they are, and yet-** _

“Is she talking to you?”

Nissa snapped her head up. Nahiri was standing over her, hands on her hips.

“What do you-”

“Emrakul.” Nahiri leaned over Nissa, her face uncomfortably close. “You heard her too. When you were speaking with Sorin. She didn’t like whatever he said.” Nahiri paused, pursing her lips. “She’s not shy about sharing her opinion.”

“No. No, she isn’t” Nissa sighed, and buried her face in her hands. “She’s in your head too?”

“Not as much as she’d like to be.” Nahiri grit her teeth. “I hadn’t expected to move an eldrazi from one world to another without a few scars, I just didn’t expect _she_ would be the scar.”

“It _was_ you, wasn’t it?” Nissa tried to keep the edge out of her voice. “Innistrad? Was that your choice or hers?”

Nahiri pursed her lips.

Nissa pressed on. “It’s too much a coincidence that Emrakul would target Sorin’s world right after yours. Not out of an infinite multiverse. And she’s not the vindictive type.”

“I am.”

“So that was all you?” Nissa stood, staring up into the leaves overhead. “Not her whispering?”

“I thought you said you didn’t think she was vindictive”

_**I’m not** _

“I don’t, I just...when did she start whispering? Did you...did it ever make you feel like you weren’t yourself? Like you were acting in a way-”

“It was all me,” Nahiri cut in. “I’m too strong for some beast in my brain to make me do anything I don’t want to do, and I’m not such a coward that I won’t accept responsibility for my mistakes.”

“So it was a mistake.”

“Yes. I’m not a-” Nahiri clenched her jaw, and stared off inland. “I’m not so blinded by anger that I don’t recognize monstrous behavior.”

“I don’t mean to judge,” Nissa offered, quietly. “It’s just...reassuring to hear regret, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t matter what I regret, just what I do.” Nahiri’s arms fell to her side. Her fingers were fidgeting. “And what I don’t do.”

“Like spreading eldrazi through the multiverse.”

“Sure. Things like that.”

They fell silent. Nahiri looked over the edge of the battlement. “Still. Less of her and...the others in our world.” Nissa followed Nahiri’s gaze. A pair of merfolk spearmen were stabbing a tiger-sized spawn.

“I can’t complain about that part,” Nissa whispered.

“And Emrakul?” Nahiri nodded her chin at the merfolk. “Does she complain about _that_?”

“She doesn’t seem to mind the smaller broods dying. Not as much as I would have guessed, if you’d asked me a year ago. I’m taking Sorin to kill the swarm that poured out of the basin tomorrow, so if she has any lingering issues with us killing the spawn, she’d better speak up now.”

_**I know you are both ignoring me, as is your prerogative, mover. I do not care, though it seems the kind of thing you wouldn’t do with any of your fellow creature of the flesh.** _

“You’re taking Sorin?” Nahiri cast about looking for the vampire. He was hovering about the base of the new lighthouse, helping hoist goblin masons up above the structure for a better view. “Out into Tazeem?”

“Yes.”

‘ _ **Rude’ is what you would call it, I believe.**_

“I’m coming with you!” Nahiri’s brow furrowed. “I – just in case.”

Nissa looked around at the shattered sea-gate. “They could use your stone-shaping here.”

“There’s plenty of lithomancers on hand here. I told you, I want to keep an eye on _him_.”

Sorin just nodded when Nissa informed him of Nahiri’s intentions.

“Fine by me,” He said, low. “Whatever you both want.”

*******

_**That was impressive today, with the binders.** _

Nissa didn’t react to Emrakul’s whisper, except to sigh just a little louder as she collapsed on her cot, now only a half-mile from the gate. Her days usually ended with the satisfying exhaustion of accomplishment since beginning restoration work, but the interaction with Sorin and Nahiri was tiring in a way she felt no gratification for. Tiring in a way that only other people could be.

At any rate, she was too tired to have a proper conversation with Emrakul. Not that that seemed to stop whatever part of the titan that took up residence in her head from understanding what she was thinking.

_**You could use your words as effectively with the burner, if you wished.** _

Nissa pursed her lips.

_**That’s up to you of course.** _ There was a brief silence. If nothing else, Emrakul was getting better at figuring out when Nissa needed to sleep. _**Would you like me to keep her from your dreams again tonight, mover?** _

Nissa rolled over, half burying her face against the cot. She gave her head the barest nod. Emrakul didn’t say anything further.

The silence and the soft pulse of the wind outside were eased the pounding in Nissa’s head. The blanket pulled around her shoulders felt like a balm against her skin. There was still the ever-present chill, but she was getting used to that.


	2. Chandra

Chandra had seen plenty of strange sights on plenty of different worlds; it came with the territory of being a career planeswalker/renegade/aspiring hero. She’d had days full of zombie hordes, days where she’d defied gods (with mixed success) , and days where she clashed with everything from dragons to giant demon frogs.

Today seemed set on one-upping all of that.

She’d expected to see some interesting things when Vraska asked for help with the reactivated eternals terrorizing the undercity. It was new territory, even if the foe was an old one. Still, the sewers of Ravnica were a bigger and more tangled maze of tunnels, caves, and entire districts than Chandra expected, stuffed with more variations of fauna, flora, and fungi than she had seen in one place. The izzet cyclopses who’d come along to assist in the clean-up were some of the oddest allies she’d ever had (their voices were so high pitched...and how were their heads so _tiny_?). The eternals, their blue lazotep now covered with an additional layer of fungal plates and clinging moss, had looked strangest of all-

-at least until an imp with a bow-tie offered her dinner.

“I insist, it would be shabby in the extreme if Pivlichino’s accepted so much help without offering a hot meal in return.” The imp, Pivlic, wrung his hands together imploringly. He hovered just in front of Chandra, taking conspicuous care not to drift close to the grimy walls or knee-deep filth of the undercity tunnel.

“It’s fine, really.” Chandra glanced back at Samut, who just shrugged. “We’d have to clear out the eternals here even if the tunnels didn’t run under your, uh, restaurant?”

“Ravnica’s newest, grandest restaurant, club, and bar,” The imp exclaimed with a bow and a flourish. “And please. Consider it a gift on behalf of the entire city. These metal monstrosities have been a blight on our streets, and to think there are still a few lurking about...”

Samut tensed in the corner of Chandra’s eye, but said nothing. Quietly, efficiently, she continued to lay out the still bodies of eternals along the dry side of the tunnel.

“...it’s truly a blessing to know such capable mages are seeing to the elimination-”

“Thank you,” Chandra cut the imp off. “And sure, we’ll take a meal. We should be done with for the day in an hour or two.”

“Excellent!” Pivlic clapped once, the crisp sound echoing down the tunnel. His attendant, a stooped ogre with a collar and bow-tie pressed crisply against his bulging neck, stepped forward, holding out a small silver tray Chandra. On it were two silver-embossed slips of paper, which Chandra took with a furrowed brow.

“What are-?”

“Show those tickets to the maitre d’ and she’ll see you sat at one of our best tables. We’ve got genuine Gruul folk musicians playing this evening; the perfect compliment to a hearty meal!” Pivlic bowed, spun in the air, and flew off up the service tunnel that led back to the streets. His attendant followed, ascending by ladder slowly, grumbling under his breath.

“Are we getting a feast in our honor?” Samut was sitting up against the sewer wall, next to the neat row of eternals, a tired smile and a raised eyebrow aimed at Chandra.

“Fancy dinner.” Chandra waved the tickets and slumped down next to Samut. The ground was filthy, but they’d gone through waste up to their shoulders several times already that day, so the added grime barely registered. “Um, I hope that was alright that I accepted the offer for both of us. If you’d rather not-”

Samut waved the apology away. “I was going to ask if I could buy you supper for all your help and your company anyways, so all the better.”

“All the better,” Chandra echoed. She tucked the tickets into a satchel on her belt. “So...what do you think so far? One last bit of Bolas’ magic keeping them going? Maybe he had another necromancer waiting in the wings with the Golgari?”

“Either. Both. That would make sense if the false god is half as clever as all who know him claim. I wonder though…It doesn’t seem as if touching them endangers our sparks any longer. If it _was_ the false god, well you’d think those enchantments would still be in effect.”

Chandra nodded. She had bare-handed grappled at least two of the eternals that morning, and gotten away with nothing but scrapes. “Maybe. Must have been a pretty exhausting spell to maintain.”

“Probably. Either way, one less spell desecrating my sisters and brothers.”

“Oh yeah, about that...” Chandra looked across Samut at the broken Amonkhet warriors. “Should we, um, say anything? Do you have some kind of burial rite or…?”

“I’ve said what needs to be said.” Samut leaned her head back until it rested against the stone. “You know, I don’t have a clue what burial customs my ancestors had. The false god left our viziers with the practice of mummification, but none of our proper rites of remembrance.” She sighed. “Nothing to be done but to say goodbye to them as warriors.”

Samut lapsed into silence. They sat listening to the rush and gurgle of the sewers for several long minutes before she shrugged and stood.

“My comrades and I have a lot to re-discover, if we survive the coming years.”

“Yeah,” Chandra nodded and stood as well, “I uh...I can imagine that’d be, uh...” Her mind grasped for the right words to continue this conversation she’d started. “Actually, I guess I couldn’t. I am very sorry, though.” She pointed at one of the growths on the nearest eternal’s armor. The fungus was grown in the patterns reminiscent of the Golgari undead, with spongy masses and plates forming crude, partial armor. “Do you want me to burn any of _that_ off, at least?”

“It’s no worse than the lazotep,” Samut laid a gently hand on the smashed skull of the closest metal-coated zombie. “And since we haven't seen any partial eternals moving under the control of the growths, I don’t think it’s much of a danger anymore.

“Thank you, though,” She added.

Chandra nodded. Her hands fell back to fiddling with the cool wrist of her gauntlets. One of the eternals had cast a volley of arrows through a gas line, puncturing it in over a dozen places. Chandra had resorted to fire-free means of fighting for the rest of the day while the izzet cyclopses struggled to fix the ruptures. She could still hear them further along the tunnel, stomping through the muck, sifting for any remaining zombies in the area.

Vraska had approached each of them separately about the renewed eternal problem. While Bolas’ death had brought the entire force to a standstill, the vengeant ravnicans had not destroyed all of them. A significant number had made their way into the sewers and waterways before they’d been deactivated. Some, for whatever reason, had congregated in dead-ends and abandoned shafts, where they had simply hunkered down and seemingly waited for the war above to end.

That would have been easy enough to clean up. Then a blue-metal hippo had attacked Zonot, killing three researchers before the guard-krases could put it down. The Simic had assumed the fungal growths were the result of some rogue project gone awry. A week later, a squad of spear-wielding eternals attacked an underground Rakdos poetry slam, and this time there had been no mistaking the Golgari fungi covering the attackers.

“Which is a bad look for the swarm,” Vraska had explained. “I could point to the half-a-dozen attacks on our own undercity territory as counter-examples, but no-one wants to hear it. Even if my guild wasn’t at war with itself regularly, other would just say I sent those attacks as plants to throw suspicion off of myself.”

Chandra had agreed to help immediately, just for something to distract from her latest bout of restlessness. She had almost even turned down the gold Vraska offered for the job.

It was quite a lot of gold. The gorgon seemed to still feel bad about how things had gone with Baan, as if that creep’s fate had been anyone’s fault but his own. Chandra hadn’t asked yet if Samut had been offered the same price for her help. It was clearly personal enough for Samut regardless, and ambivalent as Chandra felt about payment, she couldn’t imagine offering Samut the same without it being at least somewhat insulting.

“So just, uh...leave them for the Izzet grunts to move?”

“Yes.” Samut nodded. “I’ll trust the natives do what’s best for their own plane.” She looked over the line of fallen warriors. “A whole lifetime perfecting our bodies for the afterlife, and it turns out the best we can hope for after death is that we lie still and unused by evil.”

“I...I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you said that.” Samut smiled faintly. “I’m not much for being sorry about what’s past. I’ve lost a lot of my life already...I need to focus on making the future better.”

“Better life...” Chandra stared across the tunnel at the opposite wall. “What do you have in mind?”

Samut nodded, lips pursed.

“Dinner would be a good start.”

* * *

Pivlichino’s (or Pivlichino’s IV, as the sign outside read, for some reason), was spacious, crowded, and loud. Chandra adored it. The tables were laid out in a patterned sprawl, built to every size and shape needed for accommodating the different bodies of Ravnica. Groups of goblins shared drinks at long, short-legged benches. Minotaurs and elves and humans wolfed down meals at an array of middling tables. Chairs with legs the size of tree-trunks loomed large against the near wall for the odd giant diner. Waiters bustled among the diners, hefting barrels of bumbat and platters of every kind of food. Plates of steaming intestines. Sliced fruit arranged over sweet ices. Bowls of beetles drenched in vinegar.

The maitre d’, a harried-looking Viashino, had taken one look at Chandra and Samut, and escorted them to a small side room before they’d made it ten steps into the building. There, they’d been presented with a huge selection of fancy clothes to change into.

“Seriously?” Chandra had asked, pointing over the maitre d’s horned shoulder at a troll lumbering into the restaurant. “ _She’s_ covered in spiders.”

The maitre’d had sniffed. “ _They_ are not sitting at our best table.” She waved her arm at the tiers of clothing covering the walls “You may have your pick of the lot. Our thrulls will even clean your current...garments. If you would like.”

Samut had picked a tiered red-and-gold formal dress, then replaced the skirts with a set of pale white trousers and fancy riding boots. Her stride through the dining room was confident and fresh, and not at all like someone who had been trudging through sewer-muck all day. Chandra, on the other hand, was very much showing the day’s labor as she ambled beside Samut in a hastily-thrown-on set of Selesnya robes that reminded her of Ghirapur-style dresses, in cut if not in color.

Still, despite the fatigue, the heads they turned and eyes they caught were definitely aimed at her as much as Samut, and Chandra felt a little swagger sneak into her walk, even as she gawked like a tourist at the main dining room.

Pivlic practically glowed with delight at Chandra and Samut’s reaction as he escorted them to their table. He needed no encouragement to show off every detail of the establishment, from the “authentic Gruul wall-art” to the “specially Simic-grown kelp-thread carpets.”

“-and of course, our mealtime entertainment for the evening.” Pivlic gestured toward a group in Gruul hides dragging instruments into the main dining room by a side door.

“Real...real popular place you’ve got, huh?” Chandra commented, consciously restraining herself from stopping and watching in awe as a trio of demons devoured a tower of chocolate ice the size of a small house.

“Patrons from every guild and guildless walk of life enjoy the fine food and facilities of Pivlichino’s,” Pivlic beamed. “Paid for with Orzhov gold, of course, but co-owned and run with the best cooks, entertainers, and brewers of the Rakdos and the Golgari. A true symbol of collaboration and goodwill among guilds.”

“Impressive,” Samut replied, absently. She was glancing all over, at every diner and dish and decoration in sight. Chandra would have thought it just enthusiasm of the newly sparked if she hadn’t been gawking herself.

“We have a few private rooms, but I can tell you two will be happier with a full view of the action.” Pivlic gestured to a set of tables on a raised dais, right next to a small balcony. There was a clear view of the setting sun down a long boulevard through the window, and a panorama of most of the dining area on the other side of the table. The chairs were made of wicker and resin, and the cushions looked suspiciously like Simic oozes, but were soft as silk, and Chandra felt every bruise on her shoulder slide away as she leaned back and peered at the pedestrians walking a few stories below.

“Start our dear friends with a round of Appetizers Allegiant,” Pivlic dictated to a waiting minotaur waiter, standing at blank attention with a red cloth draped over his forearm. “Our special until the end of Seleszeni,” He added with a wink. “Variation without spoiling your appetite for more.”

The band started setting up as they waited for water and appetizers. The Gruul had brought several large drums, carved horns, and a massive string instrument that had clearly been carved out of a six-foot chunk of rubble. They hauled everything onto a raised stage in the center of the dining space. A serviceable place to play music, though something about it made Chandra think of a fighting ring.

“Do you like music?” Samut asked, nodding at the stage.

“Some of it. We have the best dancing music on my home plane. You _have_ to come listen to Kaladeshi qawwali singers someday.”

“I think I’d like that. Anything you can move your feet to is best.”

“Yeah. I bet Gruul music is good for dancing” Chandra eyed the band. The largest of them, a towering centaur, had wrestled the rubble-harp upright, and was plucking at it experimentally. “Though I guess even if it is good to jam to, there’s not much of a dance floor.”

A quick glance around the massive room confirmed this. Chandra frowned.

“Huh. I thought Pivlic said this place was a club too.”

“What does that mean, ‘club?’”

“Oh! Ummmm….” Chandra bit her lip. “I guess they can change from place to place, but like...I guess I think of a place with music where you can dance. Sometimes fancy, sometimes not. I prefer the latter.”

Samut nodded. “We’ll have to incite some dancing tonight.”

Chandra accepted a glass of water from their returning waiter and raised it to Samut. “We should hang out more often.”

The ‘Appetizers Allegiant’ arrived on five small plates, each showing off a fusion of tastes each guild was known for. The Golgari slow-roast slider with Rakdos pepper sauce was fantastic, as were the thin slices of thrull pate with a minty Azorius-inspired jam.

The band started playing as they worked through the dishes. The first song was a low, slow-building rumble of a song. The lead singer, a barrel-chested goblin, rasped out lyrics about the setting sun setting the world on fire.

“Interesting,” Chandra nibbled on a bite of toast points made from Boros rations and an organic mash of Gruul vegetables. “I was expecting more smashing-themed songs.”

“I like it,” Samut said. “Reminds me of the training songs from back home. Most of them are about the sun.” She made a slight face. “We’ll have to come up with some new lyrics now, I suppose.”

“How...how are things back home?”

Samut frowned. “Better than we feared, but harder than anyone could have imagined before...well, before. We’ve scraped together an outpost at Hashep, but just about every stretch of the desert is hostile even without the dangers of starvation or exposure. It’s about all Hazoret can do to keep the horrors at bay.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that.” Chandra looked down at the table. “I, uh, went back to Naktamun, a few days ago. I hadn’t even thought to look for the survivors.”

“We’re a plane of fighters,” Samut replied, low. “No need for you to feel bad about having other concerns. It seems like every plane has its share of horrors. And things aren’t so dire that I can’t spare time to see to matters here. To try and find help for my plane on other worlds.”

“Have you had any luck?”

“Vraska has put me into contact with one of the guild leaders here. Ral Zarek.”

Chandra nodded. “I’m familiar.”

“He’s come twice so far to survey the land. The land and what equipment we’ve been able to scavenge from the ruins. He’s confident that we can construct a device to bring the rains more frequently, which, basically, is to say at all.” Samut sighed. “But we persevere. We are strong. I find that I am able to best serve my people by assuring them our betrayed comrades and ancestors have been put to as honorable a rest as I can make for them.”

“If I can help at all...I can’t imagine the hardships your plane is going through, but whatever I can do...”

“I was actually going to ask if your lover was still around,” Samut replied. “-and if she would have the time to visit Amonkhet. Our excavator mages have made immense strides in re-discovering connections with the plane, and using them to coax new growth, but it would help to have someone of her talents who can travel with her own reserve of mana.”

“My…? Oh.” Chandra’s ears got hot, and the looked away, out the window. “That’s not...you mean Nissa. It’s um, it’s not like that, anymore. I mean, I could definitely ask, but...” She trailed off.

“Oh? Oh. Oh, I’m very sorry, I had just- will, I saw the two of you when she joined the battle, and afterwards, well, I just thought...”

Chandra jerked her shoulders in a small shrug. “Sure. I guess I thought so too.”

“It can be hard, when a fight goes wrong,” Samut offered. “It was the same in the trials. Even in training. The closest crop can feel disunity when faced with an overwhelming trial.”

“We’re just not right for each other,” Chandra said. She picked up a mizzium fork from the small plate in front of her, its tongs woven through with some kind of...blue roasted worm? “That’s all. We talked about it.”

“Didn’t like each other as much as you thought?”

“No, I...” Chandra set the fork down and frowned. “I’m still working that out.”

“Mm. Didn’t work it out when you talked?”

“Well...it wasn’t that long of a talk, I guess.”

Samut grimaced. “You ended your relationship before you knew _why_ you wanted to end it?”

“Would you believe I told myself it was because I didn’t like girls?”

“The way I saw you look at her when we first met in Naktamun?” Samut’s grimace twisted into a smirk. “The way you two looked at each other when we felled the false god? No, I don’t think I would believe that at all.”

“I mean, she might have been the _only_ one, for all you knew.”

“Only one?”

“Only, you know...” Chandra twirled her hand through the air, not quite sure what sort of gesture she meant to make. “The only girl I liked.”

Samut raised an eyebrow. “Was she?”

Uh...” Chandra’s hand fell to her lap. “No. She wasn’t the only one. She _isn’t_ the only one, I guess.”

“Oh?” The smirk widened. “Well, who could blame you? When there are women like me in the world...” Samut shrugged, throwing both hands up in the air and tossing her hair.

Chandra rolled her eyes. “ _Anyways,_ I guess I was just grasping at reasons, so I told myself anything.”

“Are you though? Pansexual?” Samut asked, with a straightforwardness that caught Chandra out of nowhere.

“Uh, bisexual, I guess?”

“Bisexual?”

“Yeah, guys and gals. Love ‘em both.”

Samut tilted her head. “Ah. There’s so much more than just men and women in the world, though – oh, I shouldn’t have assumed-” She flushed slightly. “Is it just humans on your home plane?”

“What…?” Chandra tilted her head as well, quizzically. “Oh! Oh, no we’ve got plenty of – I don’t have a preference of genders.” She shrugged. “I mean, I’ve got a type, but, you know, it’s just one of many types.”

“I’ll toast to that.” Samut nodded. She raised her glass of water. “Here’s to everyone.”

“Yeah!” Chandra knocker her cup against Samut’s, spilling a few drops on the tablecloth. “The whole buffet!”

Samut burst out with a sharp laugh. “Buffet?”

“Okay maybe it’s not a perfect metaphor, I just mean...you know, curry is all well and good, but sometimes you want a-a mango, you know?”

“I’ve not tried either of those things, but I take your meaning.” Samut wiped a small tear from the corner of her eye.

“My guests!” Pivlic flapped up to the table, the minotaur waiter in tow. “Enjoying everything so far?”

“So far,” Samut replied. Chandra nodded, guiltily stuffing the last small plate – a Simic-bred eel-shrimp on a bed of selesnyan lettuce – between her lips.

“Is womderfulf,” she managed through her full mouth.

Pivlic beamed. “Splendid. And any thought on your entrees for the evening? I’m happy to go over the specials.” The waiter moved up and offered Chandra and Samut several crisp sheets of fine parchment. “We also have an extensive house menu, new to this iteration of Pivlichino’s.”

Samut looked both overwhelmed and delighted with the wealth of options, and listened eagerly as Pivlic listed the special dishes. Chandra zoned the imp out, and flipped through the sheets, which listed options for hot dishes, vegetarian dishes, and dishes for undead patrons.

“Errr...maybe just a steak...” Chandra scanned the meat options, looking for an animal she was familiar with.

“Mmmm, that does sound good,” Samut said. “Not very balanced though. Hardly the whole buffet.”

Chandra looked up from her menus. Samut was peeking over the edge of hers, grinning. Chandra stuck her tongue out. Pivlic looked between the two of them, a politely puzzled look on his face.

“I mean, if you only want the meat menu.” Samut extended her hand and beckoned with her fingers. “I’m happy to look at the rest.”

“Well it just so happens I _am_ in the mood for a steak tonight,” Chandra shot back, a smirk of her own twisting the corner of her mouth.

“But just look at all these options!” Samut held up her stack of menus dramatically. “Greens and grains and all kinds of sweet treats! A whole world of food in front of you!” She gestured at Pivlic. “And the soups of the day, Chandra! Did you hear about the soups?”

Pivlic nodded graciously.

“I like meat just fine,” Chandra shot back. “Look at this: ‘side of beef with raze-boar bacon. Who could want more than that?”

Samut made a mock-offended face, and clutched a hand to her chest “Well, people with taste, for one.”

“I know what I like!” Chandra said, trying to stifle another laugh, but shouting instead. Thankfully it was only a _little_ loud, the diners in the closest tables only gave her _slightly_ affronted looks.

Pivlic coughed into his hand. “If I may, miss Nalaar, I don’t think your friend here is suggesting you aren’t interested in the, ah, side of beef. I believe she is merely suggesting that’s not the only menu you’d order from.”

“Oh, we covered that bit already,” Samut said, then turned aside and smoothly transitioned from the beginning of a belly-laugh to a feigned coughing fit.

“Right, right.” Chandra buried her face in the menu. “Um, a few more minutes, please.”

“Naturally.” Pivlic bowed and fluttered backward from the table. “No rush at all. I’ll be back shortly.”

Chandra fanned herself with the inside of the menu before setting it down.

“We _were_ just talking about dinner just now, right?” Samut was straining visibly to restrain an even bigger smile than the one already stretching her cheeks.

“You’re _awful_.” Chandra rolled her eyes. “Sometimes a meal is just a meal.”

Samut held up her hands. “Fair, fair.” Her smile faded slightly. “Does it make you uncomfortable? I don’t mean to joke if it does.”

“It’s fine.” Chandra looked out at the band, taking in the current tune. “Thinking I was straight was a pretty ridiculous thought to have. _I’d_ laugh at it if it wasn’t so pathetic.”

The new song was slow, with more focus on the percussion. The singer was speaking in some language Chandra couldn’t recognize. Guttural, but with the instruments it was, admittedly, a very pleasant sound to close the day with.

“Still not much to dance to,” Samut remarked, engrossed again in the menus.

“Mmm.” Chandra’s gaze wandered from the band to the nearby tables. A few patrons were engaged in watching the band as well, but most were well into their meals. Trolls. Humans. Vedalken. Centaurs. Goblins.

Elves.

A spot of blue among the tables caught Chandra’s eye. Jace was walking across the dining room with Vraska, Pivlic leading them along. He had caught sight of her as well and waved. Chandra grinned, pumping her own arm in the air. Jace said something to Pivlic, and the imp looked to Vraska, who nodded. The three of them changed course for the raised seating area.

“Chandra.” Jace surprised her by offering a hug when he reached the table, which she jumped into. Vraska she exchanged a handshake with. It was nice being on friendly terms with the gorgon, but she still felt more like Chandra’s employer than a friend.

“You clean up pretty good, Mr. Belts-and-Cowls,” Chandra teased, landing a light punch on Jace’s arm. He was wearing his customary blues, but instead of a cape and hood, he had a neat pair of trousers, boots, and a wide-collared shirt with gold buttons up the front. “Is that a loaner from the restaurant, or just a good illusion?”

“100% Ixalan threads.” Jace patted his thigh. “and I could say the same to you. Looking very sharp for someone who’s been in the sewers all day.” A look of concern flashed across his face, and he looked from Chandra to Samut, who was introducing herself to Vraska. “Is this – we’re not interupting a date, are we?” he asked, suddenly whispering. “I mean, I figured you and Nissa were still - I mean, that you had...”

“It’s fine,” Chandra whispered back. She could feel the smile slipping from her face despite her best efforts to keep it in place. “I’m happy to see you. Both of you,” she added, louder. “Would you like to eat with us?”

“As long as my wonderful date doesn’t mind?” Jace threw an unbelievably cheesy-looking grin at Vraska, and Chandra, once again unable to control her face, felt her eyes roll back a bit. Vraska just smiled, and actually blushed a bit.

“Yes, let’s have some tables pushed together then,” her golden eyes scanned the nearby settings. “If there’s one to spare…”

“Naturally; how fortunate to have so many friends of Ravnica joining us this evening!” Pivlic snapped his fingers and their waiter appeared seconds later, a table cradled in his hands, and a chair slung over each horn. “And have we decided on an entree?”

“Krovod steak and beans,” Chandra said, handing the menu back and shooting a defiant glare at Samut. Samut just rolled her eyes and ordered a vegetable stew, ogre-style.

Jace’s eyes glowed blue very faintly as he sat down. “Chef’s soup, please.”

“A _very_ excellent choice, sir. Our most-”

“-popular dish this evening?” Jace finished. “Yes, I noticed.” He winked at Chandra.

“Rat roast,” Vraska said, not even glancing at the menu as she sat. “As rare as your chef feels up to.”

“Splendid all around.” Pivlic signaled another waiter to bring forward a pitcher of water, and bowed. “Your meals will find you shortly.”

“And the spirits for the evening, please!” Vraska called after the minotaur as she settled into her seat.

“So, um...” Jace looked between Chandra and Samut. “What were you both talking about before we got here?”

“Diet preference,” Samut said, raising an eyebrow at Chandra.

“Oh?”

“The conversation was wrapping up, actually,” Chandra said. “What have the two of _you_ been up to?”

“Guild work.” Vraska rapped her fingers against her cup of water. “We’re trying to integrate the Kraul fungal farms with our larger food supply network, but there’s quite a lot of internal faction-fighting to put to bed before that can happen.

“To say nothing of the undead invaders you’ve been so helpfully taking care of,” she added.

Chandra and Samut both accepted the thanks with a nod.

“Leadership is, ah...rather stressful?” Chandra ventured. “I hope you’re getting enough down time. I can’t imagine being in charge of that many people.”

Vraska smiled back at Chandra. “I’m sure you did you’re best, Abbot Nalaar.” There was something very sad in her eyes, despite the grin, just as there had been when Chandra had first volunteered to help with the eternals.

“Abbot?” Samut asked.

“Like uh,” Chandra rolled her hand, looking for the right words. “Like a religious leader.”

Samut failed to stifle a laugh. Jace grinned broadly as well across the table, and Chandra presented them both with a flaming middle finger.

“Sorry, sorry.” Samut took a pull of water to settle herself. “You were a _religious_ leader? You just...well, I suppose every world is different.”

“Speaking of worlds,” Jace said. “How is Nissa? Is she still on Zendikar?”

“Oh, uh, I think so.”

Jace frowned. “Is everything alright? Have you seen her recently?”

“Nissa is one of your planeswalking companions, isn’t she?” Samut interjected. Jace turned to her, and hopefully missed Chandra’s smile falling away a second time. “What has your crop been doing since the invasion?”

“Oh, um...” Jace started counting off on his fingers. “Kaya and Teferi are both back on their home planes at the moment; they’ve got matters they wanted to settle on their own, but they’ve promised to check in if they need a hand. Chandra, well you know what she’s been doing, and me…well, I’ve been making sure the esteemed Golgari guildleader takes some time off-plane to relax when she needs it. Um, as for Nis-”

“What sort of relaxations?” Samut asked.

“Oh, the usual silly couple things,” Vraska said, squeezing Jace’s hand on the tabletop. “Cafe dates. Visiting bookstores. Some off-plane piracy here and there, and of course-ah! The food!”

The waiter strode up to the table, a tray and folding table loaded with steaming plates in one hand, and several bottles cradled in the other. The food set Chandra’s mouth to watering, and she was immensely relieved when Samut started on her own dish right away, so she had an excuse not to wait while Jace and Vraska picked out a bottle for the table.

The steak was about two inches thick and incredibly tender. A pepper gravy coated the cut, and a large helping of butter beans sprinkled over with bitter herbs filled the rest of the plate. Chandra ate through almost a third of the plate before Jace and Vraska settled on a wine; a round blue bottle that they turned over in their hands, exclaiming about its color (and...viscosity?) in excited whispers.

“You two have a lot of interests in common,” Samut observed. “Books, piracy, _wine_?”

“Yes, well.” Vraska speared the cork with her knife and ripped it out. “We’ve been exploring many more common interests since we started therapy, haven’t we?”

“Cheers to that,” Jace grinned, holding out his glass. Vraska tipped the bottle and a blue, sweet-smelling wine splashed out.

“Therapy?” Chandra asked through a mouthful of beans. “For real? You guys are like...well, Jace _acts_ like he’s a hundred years old sometimes, but you guys are a little young, right?”

“What’s a therapist?” Samut asked.

“Well, apparently it’s never to early too protect your investment in another person.” Jace exchanged a glance with Vraska, and they both grinned. “Tomik said that. He was the one who recommended an Orzhov specialist to us. Same one he and Ral see.”

Chandra wrinkled her nose. “Orzhov? The ones who were basically keeping Kaya captive?”

Vraska nodded. “I was about as enthusiastic as that. But it turns out it’s about the one service the syndicate offers that isn’t just part of an extortion machine. I mean, sometimes it is, but we’ve been lucky enough to take advantage a genuinely good specialist through the guildleader’s professional connections.”

“So you go and tell a ghost about your relationship problems?” Chandra turned aside to Samut. “Therapy is like...well I don’t know how it is on Ravnica, but they have people in Ghirapur who like, help people who have problems with their lives, or sometimes they help people who have problems with relationships.”

Samut nodded. “A confidant, or something like that?”

“Yes, though usually someone who’s trained to listen and give advice.” Jace sipped his wine. “Ours, for example, is an Orzhov advokist trained in mediation and dispute settlement.”

“And do they help?” Samut leaned in. “When you tell them about your problems?”

“So far,” Vraska said. “It’s funny. There are things you don’t realize are causing problems.”

“Or things you do recognize as problems that you just never talk about until someone helps you see the need for it.” Jace reached out a hand and took Vraska’s. “Sometimes it’s nice just to have good advice.”

Dinner rolled along with an ease Chandra hadn’t felt in months. They laughed, shared bites of their meals, and swapped stories. Chandra related her mother’s recent accomplishments with the Ghirapur consulate. Vraska dropped bits of low-level guild gossip. Jace and Samut engaged in a minor debate over the use of illusions in combat. Chandra tried a glass of the wine, and found it about the same as she did most other wines, but enjoyed the soft buzz in the back of her head to accompany the warmth in her stomach.

When the last ray of sunlight slipped out of sight, the band fell into a soft, almost wistful song, mostly focused around the huge flute-player, who swayed and pushed out a long, rolling stream of notes while the singer threw himself into a raspy spoken-word bit about a cyclops falling in love with the moon.

Pivlic re-appeared as the dishes were cleared away, bearing slices of cheesecake dripping with drizzled lines of jam and honey, and hot mugs of ogrish coffee. The hot, bitter drink snapped Chandra out of her post-meal drowsiness enough to enjoy the end of the Gruul set. The band had set their instruments aside, and for a moment it looked like they were packing up. Then they began dancing around one another in tight circles, beating their breasts. The big flutist started up a chant. One of the drummers, the viashino, began clapping out a sharp, precise rhythm, and the flutist took center stage, weaving his arms through the air with slow, jerking movements. The chant became a call and response tune that some of the patrons seemed to know, and were enthusiastically singing along with. Jace even knew a few of the words, and pumped his fist in the air each time he called out.

“Gruul riot anthem.” He whispered to Chandra between calls. “Very popular at Rauck-Chauv.”

Applause and a chorus of hoots filled the dining room at the song’s conclusion. Pivlic fluttered over to loudly and grandly thank the band. Vraska tapped Jace’s cheek.

“Not too shabby, blue-boy. I want to hear that much enthusiasm next time the crew does drunk shanties.”

Jace grinned sheepishly. “Are there _other_ kinds of shanties I don’t know about?”

“Shanties?” Samut exchanged a look with Chandra. “A piracy song?”

Chandra nodded back. “A pirate song. It’s important that you know how funny it is to me to imagine Jace singing one.”

“Jace has many fine pirate qualities.” Vraska ruffled his hair with a free hand, sipping coffee with the other. “You’d both be welcome to join us sometime. If that sort of thing interests you, of course. It’s mostly taking gold from vampires, which is as noble a cause as you can find in the multiverse.”

“That could be fun.” Chandra rubbed her hands together thoughtfully. “I like the sound of Captain Nalaar, in hot pursuit of gold and adventure.”

“ _Hot_ pursuit?” Jace smirked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a phrase, _blue-boy_.” Chandra snapped her fingers, lighting a single flame on her index finger. “But since you mention it, just imagine the terror of being pursued by fire on the open sea.” She twirled the flame around, then doused it in the last bite of her cheesecake. “Uh, not that I would make an open flame on your ship, Vraska. Well, not without permission.”

Vraska laughed. “That’s fine. Glad to see you’re _burning_ with enthusiasm. It’s a good trait for a pirate.”

Chandra rolled her eyes as Jace chimed in. “Yes, Chandra has a lot of good qualities that could, uh, _light a fire_ under a reluctant crew.”

“Mmm...” Samut’s eyes glittered. “Like her _warm_ personality.”

Chandra stuck out hr tongue and stood up from the table. “Beltwurms eat you all. _I’m_ going to go get another drink.”

A second group of musicians were setting up on the stage now, and the waiters were clearing away a large swath of the tables around them, creating the dance floor Chandra had wondered about. She skirted the growing space while checking out the new band. They were a mixed group: two women wearing Rakdos colors with no instruments, an grey-bearded Izzet mage, hooking up his gauntlets to a large device that crackled with electricity, and two vedalken, on the drums and lute, respectively, that didn’t seem to be wearing any guild colors at all.

A number of the patrons from dinner had clustered around the bar that ran along one long wall of the dining room. New patrons were slowly filing in to add to the small crowd; a noisier bunch than most of the dinner crowd, and more eager for drink.

Chandra ordered an Uzvar and gin from a half-demon bartender, then perched up on a stool to bask in the crowd and the chatter of ravnican voices. Groups of guildless youths toasted clay mugs of pale ale. Two Azorius officials, looking out of place in their white robes, sipped green liquor from shallow glass cups. A centaur trotted past as the bartender slid the cocktail across the bar, and the look she flashed Chandra nearly made her drop the glass.

_Damn it’s been too long_. She almost followed after to ask the centaur her name, but an elf, also in conclave garb, greeted the centaur as soon as the thought occurred to her, and pressed her own lips against the centaur’s.

_Taken. Figures._

The Gruul band was lounging just as short distance down the bar, laughing and chattering with a clutch of other patrons. The singer was entertaining a pair of young women in Orzhov robes with some kind of impression, and the drummer was in a hot debate with a vedalken and two older humans. Chandra’s eyes slid past them to the musician who’d been playing the huge flute, a tall, long-haired hunk whose arms were on full display under a vest of woven vines and bones. She lost herself in a stare as he reached over the counter with one arm and easily hefted a tankard of beer half as tall as he was.

_Definitely into girls_ , Chandra thought faintly, sipping her drink and vaguely aware her feet were carrying her in the direction of the band . _But that’s alright too._

“Play here often?” The words were out of her mouth before Chandra could fully think through her approach. She compensated for the lack of planning with her winning-est smile and a smooth slide against the bar toward the Gruul hunk.

He blinked and looked down at Chandra, and for a second said nothing. Chandra held up her smile for that second, wishing she had a smoother come-on. Then, mercifully, the hunk grinned.

“Ah, first time, actually. I, uh, only joined a few months ago, but Skelly-” He gestured with his drink at the goblin on the bar, who was doing puppetry for the Orzhov fans using a pair of mouse skulls “-plays all over. He’s even did a set at the Juri Revue once!”

Chandra wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but grinned and nodded all the same. “That’s a big gig, I guess?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, pretty big. Plus Rakdos himself did the encore that night. Or so I’m told. I, Uh, wasn’t really in the scene back then but-”

A muffled burst of sound cut the hunk off mid-sentence. The new band was jamming, the beat was quick and exciting, but it sounded oddly faraway.

“Local enchantment,” the bartender said, catching Chandra’s confused look. “So folks can talk at the bar. And so I can actually hear orders.”

“Oh...makes sense.” Chandra threw back her drink and tapped the hunk on the arm. “Wanna dance?”

“Hm?” The hunk looked from Chandra to the dance floor. He set his tankard down on the bar, grinned, and cracked his knuckles. “Absolutely. Let’s show ‘em how it’s done.”

The band boomed louder as soon as Chandra’s boot hit the floor, raising goosebumps along her shoulder. This music was sharp, rapid, and _loud_. Perfect for dancing however wildly and badly you wanted to.

Through the other patrons, Chandra caught glimpses of Samut coming down the few steps from their table to dance floor She paused right at the edge of the crowd, watching them for a few seconds before diving in, and Chandra lost sight of her. Jace waved from the table, behind the spot she’d disappeared.

_Want me to keep an eye on you two?_ _Maybe check in a little later?_ He kept his mental visit brief, but Chandra was happy to hear his voice. She flashed him two thumbs up and turned back to dance with the hunk.

She had to laugh. The big guy had looked totally natural bobbing and pounding to the Gruul music, but whatever dance you were supposed to be doing to this more hectic, energetic Izzet-Rakdos stuff...well this definitely wasn’t it. He looked like he was having a good time at least. Chandra moved in closer and the hunk winked at her before making an absolutely absurd motion like he was hula-hooping with his shoulders. He was doing it on purpose.

Chandra hooted, and they danced close circles around each other, dodging and weaving through the wild thrashing of the other dancers.

Samut flashed in and out of sight through the crowd. She had already mastered the jerky new dance form, and was adding her own spins. A small ring of other dancers formed around her about seven songs in, howling and clapping as Samut threw a daring backlip into the routine, and cheering as she landed perfectly on her feet. Jace and Vraska were just beyond that, sitting at the table and overlooking the dance floor. They were both seated, but leaned up against each other, swaying to the music and whispering in each other’s ear.

The hunk finally started to look winded after a few dozen songs, and signaled that he was going to go sit for a while. Chandra followed him off the floor, and pretended to slip a little on the edge of the bar area so she could fall and steady herself on his side.

_Solid, and just a lil’ soft. Awesome._

_All good?_ Jace asked in her head.

_All good._ Chandra waved back. _Now shoo; gonna work my moves._

“SooOoooOwO, what do you say you and me get out of here and go hang out at your place, big guy?” Chandra forgot about the muffling enchantment, and shouted _slightly_ louder than she meant to. A vedalken just behind the started, and knocked over a (thankfully bare) drink table.

“Uh, why don’t we sit for a while. I’m still a bit dizzy from dancing.” He stooped and picked the table up off the floor one-handed, and sat on one of the stools. Chandra hopped up on another to join him.

“You’re pretty...pretty strong.” Chandra slammed her elbow on the table and flexed her fingers. “Let’s see what you got.”

The hunk chuckled, and laid his own elbow down, taking Chandra’s hand. The rough leather of his gloves was rough, but made it easy to get a grip around his palm.

“Alright.” Chandra squinted in concentration. “Three, two, go!”

A few seconds later, it was over, and Chandra was massaging the back of her hand.

“Sorry,” the hunk said, with an apologetic, almost shy smile. “No mercy is the Gruul way, after all.”

Chandra beckoned for the bartender to bring them over another round, then pouted into her hands, both elbows on the table.

“If Nissa was here she would have totally kicked your butt.”

“Who’s Nissa?”

“An elf. We um...we used to work together. Really strong.”

The hunk laughed. “A strong elf? We had a lot of those in the conclave. Still do, I guess. Some of my toughest friends were elves.”

“Mmm, not strong like Nissa, I bet. She was depcep...decepticaly... _deceptively_ strong. Like a slender tree, but strong like an oak.” Chandra took a pull of her drink and slammed the cup on the tabletop for emphasis. “Do any of your elf-buddies have eyes that glow like they’re magic?”

“Uh, sometimes.” The hunk sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Usually when they cast spells.”

“It’s really cool, right?”

The hunk chuckled. “I suppose. I’ve got a couple eye-glowing spells myself. Should ask around if I look cool enough when I use them.”

Chandra snorted into her drink, and set it down. The hunk _did_ have nice eyes. Thoughtful and fierce like Gideon. Playful like Liliana. Kind like-

“So, uh, your elf friend-”

“Girlfriend,” Chandra blurted out. “Um, I mean ex-girlfriend?” she looked down at the table. “I uh, I’m not sure. I think I might have messed things up with her. I mean, I for sure did, but...”

“Oh.” The hunk nodded, a different sort of apologetic smile on his lips. “That’s...I’m very sorry. That’s um...that’s always very hard to go through.”

“She was like, really my type, you know? Big strong pair of arms to hold you. That’s like, the hottest thing someone can have, honestly. But she’s really _gentle_ , you know? Like, treat you like you’re a flower gentle, but not like a delicate flower because all the plants she works with are as strong as she is.”

“A nature mage?”

“Yeah! Oh, you should have seen the gardens that she kept while we were here on Ravnica...they would have made every nature guild jealous. She’s like...one of those people who always smell like their work, right? And she’s always working with flowers and plants so she smells like paradise.”

“I’m sorry she couldn’t come tonight,” The hunk said with a smile that almost looked...sad? “I hope I’m not prying but is she, uh, is she _not_ from Ravnica?”

“Huh? Oh. no.” Chandra waved her hand in front of her face. “I mean, I’m not either. We all came back here for the war, you know?”

The hunk look puzzled for a moment, then his eyes went wide, and he nodded. “That _is_ impressive then.”

Chandra cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Well. I mean, uh, that is, I’ve heard about the ones who walk from other worlds...there’s a lot, I’m told? Of worlds. If there there are dozens of worlds that each of you could be on.”

“Hundreds,” Chandra corrected, raising her drink and eyebrow for dramatic effect. “Thousands. No one’s counted them all, even.”

“Meeting a...a friend that’s precious to you? Over infinite worlds? _That_ sounds like something special.”

“Yeah.” Chandra set down her glass. She heaved a breath, and realized she wasn’t feeling nearly as wired as she had been a few minutes before. “Um...I guess that’s how I felt when I first met her. Like, I’d been to so many places in the multiverse. That’s what we call it,” she added, “and, well...have you ever looked at someone and just thought, like, ‘that’s it, that’s the person that feels real?’”

The hunk nodded. “I think I know what you mean. Sometimes something new in your life is just obviously right for you.”

“Right!?” Chandra put her glass up for a toast, and the hunk obliged with a _clink_ of his tankard. “And like, it was really great with her because when we traveled together after that...well, she made me feel that way no matter where we went.”

“Comfort and constancy.” The hunk leaned back on his stool. “Sounds like a very special person.”

“Yeah.” Chanda looked blankly at her glass, vaguely offended at the absence of any more liquor at the bottom. “You know, maybe I don’t want to, um, _hang out_ after all.” She looked up at the Gruul hunk shakily. “N’offense or anything; you’ve been real fun to talk to.”

The Hunk put his hands up. “None taken, miss. I uh, think I’m a bit too old for you anyway.” He picked his own tankard up and swilled it in his hand. “No offense.”

“Pffft, sure.” Chandra slumped in her stool, elbow on the table, chin in her hands.

“I spent a long time living a very different life than the one I have now,” The hunk offered “A life I thought was the only right path for me. When I finally had my moment of clarity, the moment that brought me to the Gruul...” He bit his lip. “...I don’t regret the life I led before that, and I don’t regret my choice to live a life that would’ve been unthinkable for me before. I guess...you’re young. Don’t be afraid of trying things you’re unsure about. Life’s too short.”

Chandra stared up at the hunk, blinking.

“Sorry; too corny?”

Chandra snorted. “A bit? But point taken.”

They lapsed into silence.

“Your friend looks awful concerned for you.” the hunk’s eyes flicked up and over Chandra’s shoulder. Samut had come off the dance floor, and was lounging by the bar, eyes on Chandra and the hunk. She had a few other dancers hanging around and talking at her, but she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to them.

“Better get back to the gang.” Chandra slid off the stool, and offered her hand to the hunk. “Chandra, by the way. ‘S been fun.”

“Ghired.” The hunk’s grip was solid, and the bones sewn into his sleeve rattled slightly as they shook. “Hope we meet again, Chandra.”

“Yeah.” She mimed a swat at his midsection. “Keep working on your dancing til then.”

Ghired laughed. “I’ll think about it. Come to the stomping grounds if you ever improve your arm-wrestling prowess.”

Chandra stuck out her tongue and trotted over to Samut.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on me.”

“I trusted you could take care of yourself,” Samut said with a shrug. “But it’s always good to have some solidarity on the battlefield.”

“That what this is?” Chandra leaned heavily against the bar. The warm buzz in her head and the thrum of the music felt like a blanket. She didn’t much feel like dancing again, but right now it was enough to watch the other ravnicans having fun.

“Life is.” Samut perched up next to Chandra. “All of it.”

Chandra laughed. “What are you? 18?” She put an arm around Samut. “You’re way too young to be so down on life.”

“We’re not _that_ much older, grandma Nalaar.” Jace heaved himself up onto a stool on Chandra’s other side. He sighed and rubbed his thigh. “Though I sure _feel_ pretty ancient right now.”

Chandra shot an outraged glance at the dance floor, then back at Jace. “Don’t tell me _you_ were dancing and I missed it. Did you turn yourself and Vraska invisible??”

“No, she’s not the dancing type either,” Jace sighed. “Just a lot of standing around and talking to people we’d rather not talk to. “Guildmaster PR, that kind of thing. “She told me I should go sit down.”

Sure enough, Vraska was standing up on the dais, near their table, having a hushed (or as hushed as the noise in the room allowed) discussion with a frog-faced mage in Simic biomancer robes. Long, elvish ears poked out from behind the frog-mancer’s eyes, and they didn’t appear to be having nearly as much trouble as Vraska hearing over the music.

“Ah.” Chandra bumped Jace with her shoulder. “Boy-toy blue-boy banished while the adults talk?”

Jace laughed. “Oh, nothing like that. Vraska knows I don’t like the extended standing and talking. She’s...very good at recognizing when I’m uncomfortable. I guess we’ve both been very good at that, and now we’re working on acting on it more often.”

Samut cocked her head, quizzically. “Was that a problem before?”

“Not at first,” Jace replied, pursing his lips. “but it was hard for a while after what happened here. I think it took more out of us than we wanted to admit, and it was affecting how we acted. That, and Vraska does so much for her guild. It’s like...well, it’s like a dozen full-time jobs, and I wasn’t supporting her as much as I should have.” He smiled at Chandra and Samut, and the smile, small and tired as it was, reached all the way to his eyes. “It’s been tough but, well I really think whatever we have is worth it.” He blushed a bit, and a second later Chandra recognized the signs of a minor illusion fluttering over Jace’s face, hiding the red in his cheeks.

“Still working a little on being honest though, huh?” Chandra elbowed him in the side, then threw her arms around Samut and Jace.

“A little,” Jace laughed. “I’m lucky to have friends who still call me out.”

They sat together and watched a while. The Rakdos musicians showed no sign of slowing down, nor did the dancers. Samut nodded off on Chandra’s shoulder after a few minutes.

“So, uh, it’s helped, then?”

“Hm?”

Chandra looked at Jace out of the corner of her eye. “The therapy? Talking to someone?”

Jace nodded, slow, then reached into his cloak. “I don’t know if they take clients still, but I can put in a word through Ral if you want.” He scribbled an address onto a scrap of parchment and handed it to Chandra.

Chandra nodded. “Thanks. I think that’d be good. I’ll um...I’ll let you know.”

Jace just smiled and took Chandra’s hand. They remained a while longer, as midnight slipped away into the early morning hours.


	3. Nissa

Lesser eldrazi had many qualities that made them deadly predators, most of which made them relatively pathetic prey. The power to desiccate the land was a great liability when it gave your pursuers a trail to follow, especially when moving in packs. The average drone’s physiology, so adept at ambushing and bringing death, made them slow and clumsy when on the retreat.

The swarm had had a full day’s head start before Nissa, Sorin, and Nahiri set out on their trail. A day’s worth of travel that the planeswalkers could cover in considerably less time.

Unfortunately, what the Eldrazi lacked in natural advantage, inland Tazeem made up for by being an impenetrable maze of massive hedrons, cavernous ground, and rolling, titan forests. The eldrazi hadn’t even followed the Umara river, where the planeswalkers might at least have relied on reports from the merfolk settlements to indicate where the swarm was headed.

Thankfully, Nissa still felt the itch. One massive, festering, migrating rash for the mass that had abandoned the Halimar Basin, and minute irritations that helped her, Sorin, and Nahiri take care of any stragglers as they made their way north, through the reclaimed stretch of Oran-Rief.

Nahiri was dispatching two such stragglers now, far below in one of the forest’s many cavernous shafts. Nissa knelt by the mouth of the tunnel, a sheer drop of ridged stone in the middle of a large grass clearing. Sorin stood a few paces further off, one hand tapping irritably and irritatingly at his pommel. A pair of merfolk kitesailors watched from a slight distance.

“Wouldn’t that go faster with all three of you folk down there?” The smaller of the two merfolk called.

“Not enough space,” Nissa responded, gaze fixed on the tunnel. For the dozenth time she pressed her hand to the damp grass around the mouth of the cave shaft, feeling for signs of life. The underground networks were less-used nowadays ever since the threat of the Roil had subsided, but there was always a chance that a few elves might have gotten caught between the cave walls, the eldrazi, and an angry kor lithomancer.

“She’ll be careful,” Sorin said, unsolicited. “Nahiri has a skill of precision with her stonework like no other.”

“Thank you for the input,” Nissa muttered back. No unexpected pulses of life moved in the tunnels, which was the far greater reassurance at the moment.

“What sorta coat is that, mister?” The small merfolk asked.

“Demon hide,” Sorin replied, voice flat.

“Demon hide, he said, Olmer. What do you make of that?”

“Seems unlikely,” The tall merfolk replied. “But the world’s full of unlikely things, I suppose.”

Sorin rolled his eyes. “I could go help her. She shouldn’t be having this much trouble, if it really is just two.”

“The caves are vast,” Nissa said. “I’m not surprised it’s taking her a while to find them.” She glanced up at Sorin. “You have a lot of faith in her.”

Sorin crossed his arms. “She’s ruthless and she knows what she’s doing. That’s just the truth.”

“Then she’ll be fine. You’d just get in her way down there.”

Sorin sniffed, and ignored another question from the merfolk. They passed a minute in silence before he spoke again.

“We fought as a team on Zendikar before, you know. On many different worlds, for that matter. We _can_ work together, and rather effectively, I might add.”

“I look forward to you showing me.”

That bought another two minutes of the vampire’s sullen silence. Nissa remained crouched by the tunnel shaft, trying to focus on the trailing winds drifting through the network of hedrons and trees that surrounded them. On the long, wild grasses trailing under the breeze.

“Ha!”

They both started at the sound of Nahiri’s laugh echoing up out the shaft, followed by the faint clash of stone on stone. Nissa let out a small relieved breath. Sorin’s shoulders slackened noticeably.

Nissa watched him out of the corner of her eye. He glanced down at her twice, and looked back away both times. One of the nice things about having eyes that glowed bright green was that Nissa could observe a person without them really knowing exactly what she was looking at.

_**If you have something to say, mover, you should not feel fear to say it.** _

Nissa narrowed her eyes. She was cherishing the silence-

_**Silence immersed in actions undone is no true silence.** _

“You’re very concerned for her,” Nissa blurted out in a whisper. “In light of what she took from you.”

Sorin shrugged and flicked his the wrist. “I’m allowed. I can be angry about what she’s done and worry as well.”

“You just sound like you regret what happened-”

“Of course I regret it! My entire plane-”

“That’s not what I meant. You seem like you regret it because you lost a friend as well.”

Sorin’s crossed arms tightened around each other, like a snake’s coils drawing close. “You say it like you think I’m incapable of that sort of regret.”

Nissa suppressed a twist in her stomach. _No need to planeswalk away. Just deal with the confrontation at hand_.

“You’ve never given me a reason to think you’re someone who regrets the consequences of their actions until a few days ago.” She turned to fully face Sorin. “I’m not complaining, but if you asked me whether I thought you were a creature of regret a week ago...well I’d have said ‘no’.”

“I’m very lucky, then, that your opinion on the matter means nothing to me.”

Nissa felt a stab of anger and irritation. She turned back away.

_**Are you satisfied?** _

Nissa shut her eyes, and sighed. “No I suppose not.”

“What was that?” Sorin asked.

“Speaking to myself.” Nissa stood. Behind Sorin, the merfolk were whispering to one another. “And...I apologize. I’m was trying to be honest, not hurtful. Your regrets are your own business.”

Sorin nodded. “Thank you.”

He was avoiding her eye, but his jaw unclenched. “It’s...it’s a matter of preservation. If that makes sense.”

“Not entirely.”

Sorin pursed his lips, frowning. A long breath trailed out his chest. Nissa wondered how much of that was habit, and how much was for effect.

“I prefer change in the world that I can control. The eldrazi were always the antithesis of that. I fought beside Ugin and Nahiri because by defeating the titans we preserved the multiverse as it was. I preserved my home from the possibility of uncontrollable, devastating change. When I thought the multiverse safe, I moved to ensure its preservation in the future.”

Nissa nodded.

“I took it for granted that the bonds I had made would preserve themselves. Next to the dangers to the physical worlds, the bridges of companionship seemed...well, much less assailable. So I neglected them. Then one friend died. And another almost lost everything she had fought for.”

“And then you lost the plane you’d given everything else up for all the same.”

Sorin nodded, slow. “All because I neglected the connections I’d made. I regret the ruin to my home most of all. And I am angry in a way that I don’t think will ever fade away. But for all that I still have space in my soul to regret that I did not preserve my friendships.” He looked past Nissa, toward the tunnel.

“That makes sense,” Nissa crouched back by the mouth of the shaft. After a beat Sorin stepped forward to stand at the edge, just a few paces away.

“Ha- _haaaaa!_ ”

A glow lit the depths of the tunnel, growing brighter and hotter with each passing second. Nissa and Sorin ducked back from the cave mouth.

A rush of air roared up, and Nahiri burst from the shaft, a cow-sized eldrazi clutched in each stone-gloved hand. She hovered above them a moment, bearing a grim grin of triumph along with her trophies. Then she set down onto the grass and cast the bodies to the ground.

“Just these ones, but if you want to check...”

Nissa nodded and felt for the leylines. The ground below was twisted and scarred still, but the active itch had subsided.

“We’re done here.” Nissa stood. “North, again.”

“That’s quite a trick, miss,” one of the kitesailors called from a slightly further distance. “How’re you flying in them tunnels?”

Nahiri grinned and patted her boots. The heels and soles, constructed so that bars of stone could slot into them, glowed with the hot-white flare of lithomancy, and gave her a lift several feet into the air, where she somersaulted over Sorin. “It’s all in the rocks, girls.”

The taller of the merfolk whistled appreciatively. Sorin pursed his lips.

* * *

The tangle of roil-sculpted earth, titan trees, and mountainous hedrons thickened the further north they ventured through the reclamation zone. And they ventured quickly. There was an urgency to Sorin and Nahiri that pressed them to weave impatiently through the roots, trunks, and floating rock. Nissa found herself relying on Ashaya more often than not for a ride and the speed necessary to keep up.

Above and to her left, Nahiri swooped under a low-floating hedron, scattering a flock of manta. Years ago there would have been no shortage of dangerous creatures about, even without the eldrazi, but the largest predators had been slow to return to the Rief, and the speed and suddenness of the trio’s travel had so far been too startling for the ones who had to even consider ambushing them.

To Nissa’s right, Sorin sprinted along a branch three times as thick around as he was tall. He hadn’t tired yet. When they’d first struck out, Sorin had suggested simply planeswalking off Zendikar, then using Nahiri and Nissa’s expertise to ‘walk back where the swarm had run to,’ to save time.

“It’s possible,” Nissa had replied, “But if the swarm disperses, I would prefer we do a thorough search on foot than have any of them scattered around the continent.”

So far the itch had remained a coherent mass. Whatever guided the drone and spawn movements, it had only led a few of the eldrazi to disperse along the way, and those few were easily dealt with without undue delay.

The merfolk, who’d introduced themselves as Olmer and Ton, had followed the trio from the cave on their flying kites, jabbering and shouting questions all the while. Occasionally Sorin even answered them back.

“Are you _certain_ there aren’t any settlements ahead?” He called, the second such question in an hour.

“Not a one,” Ton, the shorter merfolk called back. “Most everyone’s still sheltered in an’ around Coralhelm. You’ll miss that by a good 30 miles if you keep this heading, and you’ll have nothing but leagues of dead woods around you by then.”

Nahiri caught Nissa’s gaze, nodded over at Sorin, and rolled her eyes. Nissa just grunted, and scanned the paths ahead. The low ground to the left faded into shadows as a web of roots and curved pillars of earth lifted the trees well above the dirt. On the right, the ground rose in a mossy shell of roots and massive, fallen logs.

Ashaya opted for the higher ground, and the elemental’s tread became light as the falling leaves as he loped through the moss. The trees here left tough remains, but it was the careless traveler who ruled out the possibility of a decayed spot taking their feet out from under them.

A speck of pale blue on the carpet of green ahead caught Nissa’s eye.

“Likely you won’t find any folk wandering this stretch of Tazeem for a while,” Ton drawled. “Mostly it’s bolder folk like Olmer and me who-”

“Body!” Nissa shouted to her companions. “There’s someone up ahead!”

Nahiri and Sorin split off to the left and right, as they’d discussed before leaving the wall. If either didn’t return in five minutes, the remaining two would treat the figure ahead as a trap. Ashaya slowed to a stalk and padded forward silently, Nissa scanning the surrounding trees as they approached. The merfolk landed on either side of Ashaya at her signal for caution.

“Haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife,” The taller merfolk said, just under her breath.

“It’s the despoilers, love.” The shorter merfolk pointed to the trails of dust and spots of twisted stone that grew, almost indiscernible, against the black bark of the trees.

Ashaya halted a hundred paces from the body. Nissa crouched low on the elemental’s shoulder and shut her eyes. The leylines were quiet, save for the itch to the north. On the edges of her mind the creatures that had fled from the Eldrazi’s path went about their business, a short distance displaced from their usual haunts. Calm, but alert.

Nahiri emerged first, gliding down from the trees, signaling ‘all safe’ with a brusque wave. Sorin emerged a second later, one hand wrapped around his sword, another around a grey sack that trailed spiked tendrils.

Ashaya crossed the distance to the body in a handful of long strides. The thing dangling from Sorin’s hand was covered with glassy, half-lidded eyes. An eldrazi. One of Kozilek’s drones.

“Hit it from behind.” Sorin threw the drone to the ground. A diamond-shaped gash ran straight through its body, leaking a faint distortion into the air, like it was full of gas. “It was waiting up in the branches, watching the body.”

_**Impressive.** _

“I didn’t feel that,” Nissa said, a cold lump forming in her stomach.

Sorin shrugged. “They’ve got all sorts of tricks.”

_**The one you called Kozilek was an apex of distorting the senses. There is no shame in having missed a trick, so long as you recognize it the next time it is played.** _

“So the body’s bait?” Olmer called from a distance.

Nahiri knelt by the merfolk. “Not a body.” She put two fingers to the merfolk’s neck, along his flattened gills. “There’s a pulse. We need to get him to a healer.” She ran a hand along the chest, mottled with ugly, plum-colored bruises. “Ribs shattered. He’s probably bleeding underneath. I can do some simple mending but-” She paused, as if remembering something, then looked up at Sorin.

“What?” He stared back. “We stabilize him and then what? Are we going to carry him with us?”

Nahiri’s face twisted into a scowl. “Maybe.”

“If we delay-”

“Please.” Nahiri squeezed the words out between grit teeth. “You said you were helping. This is the least you could do.”

Sorin wrinkled his nose, but still knelt across from Nahiri, laying hands on the merfolk’s neck. His fingers flexed and the veins tensed in the merfolk’s neck. The chest rose slowly, and then the belly, then the veins in the arms bulged as Sorin pushed the blood to flow to where it was needed.

“Splints.” Nahiri looked to Nissa.

“Splints.” She nodded and thrust her staff into the mossy log underfoot. Emerald shoots tore through the bark, twisting together in tight bundles. In seconds a small arc of saplings surrounded her.

Nissa pulled one up, and directed the skysailers to do the same. They exchanged wary looks, but followed her lead, stripping away the stubby roots with their trail knives. By the time they had cut the saplings to the appropriate size, Nissa had produced a length of vine to lash the splints to the fallen merfolk’s limbs.

He was drawing breath now, and a steady rise-and-fall had returned to his chest. A faint whistle of breath trickled through his lips. The bruising still looked horrible, but the body beneath was less shattered. Less sunken.

“Blood’s out of his lungs.” Sorin rose to his feet, and produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket. With slow, deliberate strokes he began to wipe down his palms and each finger. “and I’ve healed what the veins can heal. He won’t be moving under his own power without at least a month of bed rest, and he certainly won’t be able to defend himself out here.”

“We can take him to Magosi,” Ton volunteered. “We’re due there in the next week; won’t hurt too much to get back a bit early.”

“Thank you.” Nahiri glared at Sorin. “Are there survivors enough to take care of him?”

Olmer laughed at that.

“Plenty. And when they find out he was ambushed and used as bait by the despoilers? Well, you’d think folk would get tired of stories like that, but they’ll all be clamoring to hear it. Yeah, he’ll be well looked out for.”

Ton and Olmer spent the next few minutes rigging a hammock between the frames of their kites, joining them into a single, two-winged arrangement. Then they mounted the closest tree, Nissa following close behind on Ashaya, who cradled the injured merfolk in its arms.

“This’ll do.” Ton scrambled out onto a broad branch, grappling the kite with Olmer to get it up onto the limb. Ashaya lay the merfolk into the stretcher between the kites, and Nissa helped lash him down.

“Glad we found you.” Ton offered a hand to Nissa, who politely declined it. “Good to work with good people in these dangerous times.”

Nissa smiled faintly. “Always danger in our world, isn’t there?”

Ton shrugged. “Always good to find good people, then.” With a wave, she and Olmer kicked off from the branch, and glided quietly away through the depths of Oran-Rief.

* * *

Nahiri called for a short rest before pushing forward any further. She made the flight via lithomancy seem effortless while she was in the air, but the energy needed to move that way was clearly taxing her.

Oran-Rief didn’t lend itself to campfires, but Nahiri had enough energy in reserve to set a small boulder to glowing, providing some warmth for herself and Nissa. Sorin stalked off into the woods, and returned nearly an hour later, leaves and sticks tangled in his hair and clothing, two iridescent snakes hanging from one hand, and a handkerchief-wrapped collection of roots and fruit in the other.

“Supper,” He placed everything in a pile next to the stone.

Nahiri took the snakes without a word. The stone flared brighter, and she reached three fingers into the white-hot surface. When she pulled her hand back the fingers clutched a long, square knife. She let the blade cool, and began stripping the skin and scales away.

“These are poisonous.” Nissa held up several of the fruits before tossing them aside. “These are fine. This one should be cooked before we eat it. And this...well, this is _technically_ edible...”

Sorin shrugged. “Then I guess it’s _technically_ supper.” He didn’t move to sort through any of what he’d scavenged, and didn’t appear the least interested in partaking of any of it.

“Are you just going to stand around and look unpleasant then?” Nahiri had one snake skinned, and tossed it on top of the stone. The meat struck with a hiss and sizzle, followed by a stinging smell of cooking meat.

Sorin bristled. Nissa busied herself with rearranging the inedibles into random piles.

“Or were you looking for a ‘thank you?’”

“I never asked for thanks,” Sorin replied, tone cool. “I _would_ appreciate not being treated like I haven’t been contributing.”

“Baby,” Nahiri replied, carving a strip of scales from the second snake with a flick of her wrist.

“Beast,” Sorin growled back.

“How about that.” Nahiri sneered up at Sorin. “Looks like the selfish old bat _isn’t_ as willing to let things go as he claims.”

“There’s no shame to you, is there?” Sorin’s feet shifted, though he did not step forward. “Not a bit of remorse for what you’ve done and who you’ve hurt. It’s all just my fault for not being there for you, isn’t it?”

“If you call a thousand years imprisonment ‘not being there,’ then sure.”

“I did that to _you,_ Nahiri. What you did was an act against hundreds of thousands. That is not justice of any kind.”

“You _want_ me to do something to you?” Nahiri tossed the second snake on the stone, and pointed her knife at Sorin. “All you had to do was ask. I’ll cut off that dainty face and shove it-”

Ashaya took a step toward the three planeswalkers. Sorin and Nahiri froze and fell silent.

Nissa continued to re-arrange produce.

For a long minute there was no noise but the cooking of snake-meat. Nahiri leaned forward and flipped the pieces with her knife.

“It’s like Ugin used to say, Sorin. We’re older than some planes’ gods. We don’t _do_ shame.”

Sorin folded his arms. “Perhaps that has been our mistake.”

“by the Pistons...” Nahiri rolled her eyes, and they landed on Nissa. “What do you think? Am I a monster like he says?”

“I didn’t-”

Ashaya shifted again, cutting Sorin off. Nissa hefted one of the fruits-a deadly green and purple thing the size of a fist-in her hand, and looked up, meeting Nahiri’s collarbone with her own gaze.

“I don’t think you care about what I think.”

Nahiri snorted. “You’re damn right I don’t care about-”

“Which is just as well, because I don’t care about what you’ve done.”

Sorin rounded on Nissa. “How can you say that? You were there! You fought the eldrazi on Innistrad. You saw the devastation!”

“Yes, I _was_ there. I _did_ see what happened and I _did_ everything in my power to mitigate.” Nissa’s fingers tensed, and her gloves dug shallow furrows into the fruit skin. “And if I _had_ been the person responsible for the things that happened on Innistrad...well personally, I don’t think I could ever look at myself without some disgust for a long time.”

Nahiri’s lip twitched.

Sorin threw his hands up in the air. “Then-”

“But that was then.” Nissa relaxed her grip on the fruit. A small crack ran down the skin where her index and middle finger had rested. “The damage is done, and it will always be done. What am I going to do about it? Kill you? For revenge? The multiverse doesn’t care about justice the way you do. I don’t care that you let worlds fall apart because of your neglect, or that you brought Emrakul to his world. Those problems are dealt with, and neither have any bearing on what we need to do next to fix the world.” Nissa met Nahiri’s eyes. “So unless you plan on turning yourself over for execution on Innistrad-” she jerked her head at Sorin “I-I suggest you do what _he’s_ doing and focus on doing good with the power and the freedom you have.”

“Well, I would have had a lot more time to do good on the planes,” Nahiri impaled a snake with her knife and ripped it off the stone. “if someone hadn’t thrust me into a demon pit and forced my inaction.”

Now Nissa felt a hot pit erupt into her chest. She let the fruit fall to the ground, where it burst along the seam, leaking pale juices.

“It must have taken a while to make all your preparations for what happened on Innistrad.” She kept her voice level.

Nahiri scowled. “Yes. I’m not trying to hide that. I-”

“We were fighting against the Eldrazi for months. Sometimes...sometimes I feel like I spent a whole lifetime ripping out every inch of myself to preserve any scrap of our world from them. All Zendikar rose up to drive them back, and more lost their lives than anyone could ever mourn. And yet, I don’t think I ever saw _you_. Not in my travels. Not when we finally brought down the titans.”

Nahiri’s jaw twitched. Her eyes were flared. She lowered her knife from her face, until the snake nearly dragged against the moss.

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I’m not angry about what you did, not anymore. I’m upset by what you could have done instead. And...and I think you should be just as upset. You said before your regrets don't matter, but I don't trust someone with no regrets.”

Nahiri just glared across at Nissa. When Nissa said nothing more, she glared instead at the rock and started tearing chunks of meat off the knife with her teeth, letting the second snake to burn on the stone.

Nissa turned to her small pile of fruit and started eating herself, not even bothering to cut anything up, but letting the pulp stain the sides of her mouth.

After the silence stretched into minutes, Sorin spoke. Nissa almost wished he hadn’t. The strange silence between angry companions was miserable. Breaking it was worse.

“I’ll...take watch. If you two need to sleep.” There was still anger in his voice, but he drifted up into the treetops without any further comment. Nahiri settled back against her tree once she’d finished eating, and turned away so that Nissa couldn’t have told whether she was sleeping or not, even if she could have brought her eyes up to look the kor in the face a second time that night.

_**You wielded your words with conviction and truth.** _

Nissa almost jolted to her feet. She had, for the first time in a long time, forgotten the squatter in her mind.

_**You should be proud. With every ounce of self-belief you cultivate, the closer you come to being a true mover of existence.** _

Nissa didn’t reply right away, but lay back, letting her head sink into the moss. Her stomach hurt, her mouth felt dry, her head felt like there was a stone where her brain should be, and she would have felt entirely miserable if not for Ashaya. The elemental sat cross-legged at her side, wind trailing through his lusher body parts.

“Life isn’t chess, you know,” Nissa said at last, murmuring up at the treetops.

_**The games of the flesh minds are just a simple way to express what I mean. What matters is not the metaphor, but that it helps you understand. You deserve to be the one who directs your life. Whether it is pieces or lives you deal in, there is the risk of becoming a passive reactor. Be the actor. The one who puts ideas and movement into the minds of others.** _

“I don’t want to manipulate anyone,” Nissa said at last. She kept her voice to barely an echo of a whisper. “I’ll use the leylines where there’s good to be done, but I won’t force my will onto others.”

_**I don’t mean by force, unless force is brought against you. Though it is a skill worth cultivating. You’ve seen that not all great powers are as friendly as I.** _

“Then I don’t know what you mean.”

_**Many among your companions, past and present, have had the power of the word to inspire and direct and bring others together. A magic that needs no mana, and that I see you struggle to even try to use.** _

Nissa almost laughed, despite the heaviness pulling at her eyes. If the eldritch voice in your head spoke, what was there to do but listen?

_**I worry sometimes, mover, that you will let life slip through your fingers without ever seizing what you want.** _

“I’m very happy in my homeworld, actually,” Nissa snapped. Nahiri stirred slightly, and Nissa clapped a gloved hand to her mouth before continuing. “I’m satisfied with the work I do, and I don’t need you telling me I should be dissatisfied because I’m not...because I’m not _powerful_ enough.”

_**That is-I will not argue that. Presuming the intent and wants of the flesh has not been my own greatest strength. I will say, whatever your intentions in this world, or any other, power will help you meet those goals. Power and understanding how to wield...no, how to apply it.** _

“And what would I need that for? I can heal the world with what I know.”

_**You should listen when the binders speak. There’s more than what you can touch that you can fix. And that’s with just your words. Or would you tell me you don’t want peace between your companions?** _

Nissa glanced over at Nahiri. Her pale shoulders where rising and falling in slow time. Above, Sorin was just visible as a sliver of moonlight hit his breastplate.

“Are _you_ telling _me_ you wouldn’t just...reach into their heads to have them do what you wanted?”

_**I can twist minds to embrace my being, and that is a type of victory. I myself am not satisfied with that sort of adoration. I want my foes and my friends to decide themselves that I am right, not to have to twist their minds to bring them to that conclusion. The final decision should be theirs, made freely.** _

Nissa rolled over so her back was facing the stone. The forest was cold. And she’d left her blankets and bedroll behind to move quickly. “I’m going to rest, now.”

_**Yes. The burner?** _

“Away.” Nissa curled her knees up, and shuffled closer to Ashaya. “Away, please.”

* * *

Nissa managed about four hours of sleep before the itch clawed her awake, burning a trail of fire-ant bites down her back. Her groggy grunts stirred Nahiri, who rolled to her feet, face calm, but brandishing her dagger in a tight-knuckled grip.

“Are you alright?” Sorin floated down, nearly at a dead drop, sword drawn.

“Fine. It’s-” Nissa shook her head, and flexed her shoulders, trying to steady her heartbeat. The itch subsided by degrees as she focused. “-the swarm is close. Moving slower.”

“Good.” Nahiri hurled her knife into stone between them. It stuck fast, then melted into the rock. “I’d like to kill something, and I don’t want to rest again until that happens.”

* * *

Nahiri led the renewed chase with a grim energy and a speed that left Nissa and Sorin trailing behind where the terrain got rough. After a mile they had lost sight of her entirely.

The trail grew more confused miles along as the markings of the retreating swarm intersected with larger swaths of eldrazi devastation. Further still and the trail disappeared entirely as the reclaimed swath of the Rief disappeared into the dusty ghost of itself.

It was at the edge of the ruined forest that they found Nahiri, staring out over the dusty landscape. The same shapes of trees and roots and bridges of earth loomed above them, but pale and desiccated. It was as if a sculptor had sought to re-create the forest from the memory of another, and had nothing but ashen whites to work in.

“It’s like this for miles further,” Nissa offered, gently, as Nahiri stared. “They didn’t get all of it, obviously, but...”

Sorin grit his teeth, audibly. “The Oran-Rief covers most of the continent for miles ahead.”

“It does.” Nissa slipped down from Ashaya’s shoulder to stand behind Nahiri. “It did. I believe it will again. Part of the forest we’ve traveled through is the result of our efforts to regrow and revitalize. Much of the land around Coralhelm and along the Umara has regrown as well, thanks to the waters returning in full. The land is eager to heal, and-”

“-and they have you.” Nahiri nodded, jaw set. “Someone with relevant skills. I’m glad,” She added, when Nissa cringed back from the result. “I really am. I couldn’t have done something like this.”

She rushed out into the forest ruins before Nissa could respond.

“Rash,” Sorin muttered. “Still rash.”

“Did you take the destruction of your home any better?” Nissa asked, quiet.

“Hardly.”

Nissa nodded. “I’m still waiting on you to show me you can work together.” Ashaya scooped her up and took a step into the dusty tangle, then another, and fell into a jog.

“I shouldn’t have called her a beast,” Sorin muttered, drifting forward after them. “That was a wound that didn’t need to be opened again. I’m sorry.”

“...Thank you. I’m not the one who needs to hear that.”

They both ran ragged to catch up. Nahiri’s pace fluctuated now, between bursts of speed that took her out of sight, to long, lagging floats through the air to the point that Nissa and Sorin would pass her by a quarter mile before she matched pace. Another hour into the chase and, without warning, she burst through one of the desiccated roots, one wider than a wurm’s neck, and swearing, doubled back once to pulverize the broken section into dust.

_**The remorse of a game badly played.** _

Nissa made no attempt to respond to Emrakul. The itch was growing stronger now, and she had to focus every fiber of her mind to not let the inflaming sensation overwhelm her. They were close. So close. They could put an end to this horde soon...

Ashaya sensed her agitation. His pace doubled, outstripping Sorin and the still-fuming Nahiri.

Nissa shut her eyes. There was life, even here, if she followed the leylines deep enough. True, it was buried under hundreds of feet of chalky forest-corpse, but it was there, ready to thrive again. Here worms still turned the soil. Here there were still minerals for life to grow strong on. Nissa sent mana through to these pockets of life, and felt them swell. Felt them jolt with energy, and begin the long climb through the waste to taste the sunlight.

There were years, maybe decades to go before Oran-Rief looked anything like its former self. In truth, there was little chance it would ever look exactly as it had. That was fine. Recovery was a slow process, change was part of recovery, and Nissa would be there to help her world heal every step of the way.

_**The land is steeped in my brothers’ touch** _

Nissa grit her teeth. “I’d noticed. Or did you miss the months I’ve spent trying to heal the land?”

_**An ambitious and a powerful endeavor. But I didn’t mean the wastes. My brother’s-** _

“I’m done hearing about Ulamog, actually,” Nissa hissed.

_**No, mover, not my one brother. I mean that my brothers pieces are-** _

A noise from behind shook Nissa’s focus. Sorin was calling after her. Bellowing something.

Her name.

The itch flooded Nissa’s mind like a rush of filth-laden water. Ashaya had passed under the bent form of an eldrazi-withered tree, and ahead, a small, sunken clearing radiated the itch from every direction.

Even below.

The ground beneath Ashaya splintered and burst upward in a column of shattered, desiccated plates. Nissa and the elemental were thrust up into the air. Trees shattered into dust. Purple-blue arms shot through the newly-formed hole in the forest floor, followed by taut red muscles and a face of blank bone.

A crusher. One of Ulamog’s brood.

Nissa leapt from Ashaya’s back onto an airborne sheet of hard packed-dust. It came apart under her feet as she sprinted along its length and flung herself onto a second chunk of airborne debris, just behind the crusher’s head. She bent her knees and sprang through the air, drawing her sword mip-leap and scoring a deep gash along its shoulder.

But not deep enough to kill.

And there were more coming. Spawn poured out of the hole. Drones leapt down from the grey-white branches of the ruined trees, filling the suddenly much larger clearing. Ulamog’s brood moved over the brittle ground with ease, and Kozilek’s obsidian-clad eldrazi added twists of bismuth to the surroundings as they threw themselves down into the clearing.

It was the swarm they had been tracking, and then some, all joined together for an ambush. Nissa swore and dove off the crusher’s neck just as it slammed its hand down where she had crouched. The blow echoed like an explosion, ringing in Nissa’s ears.

She hit the ground, rolled to a stand, then raised staff and sword as a tidal wave of eldrazi spawn flung themselves towards her.

Nissa stepped back with her first swing, cutting through the skull of one spawn and voiding the space where its companions slashed and stomped and lashed out with a dozen types of limbs. Each swing of her sword necessitated another step away from the horde. Each blow felled an eldrazi, but there was a pit full of them, a crusher just behind her, and nowhere else to dodge. Nissa threw a desperate glance over her shoulder. Ashaya had landed safely and was grappling with the titanic thing, though the crusher’s arm alone arm alone outweighed him two-to-one.

A sudden disorientation swept over Nissa, and she slipped on a sharp divot. She hit the ground hard, her vision nearly inverted. A crab-shaped eldrazi hovering above her, an upside-down crown of obsidian emitting iridescent pulses all through the clearing.

At least a dozen eldrazi converged on her. Nissa held out her sword. Her vision filled with red, and her chest a sudden, overdue fear.

“Too many.” Her gasp was barely a whisper. “Too many.”

_**Breathe, mover. You’ve faced worse odds.** _

“I had friends,” Nissa whispered. “I had-”

_**You still have them.** _

A blur of white and red swung down from the trees, scorching the air in its wake. The sizzling pendulum swept away a score of the eldrazi. The remainder of the spawn menacing Nissa lurched to a sudden stop. Their skulls burst. Their bodies fell limp to the dust.

Sorin and Nahiri loomed behind them, the vampire’s hand outstretched in an invocation of blood magic, the kor rushing forward, a molten sword in each hand.

Nahiri swept through the front ranks of the eldrazi, leaving each sword buried in the breast of a still-standing eldrazi before sweeping Nissa up in her arms. The stone that had smashed into the swarm followed in her wake like a blazing comet.

“This them?” Nahiri shouted over the rush of air.

Nissa nodded, weakly. The distortion in the air made it difficult to tell where Nahiri’s face ended and the white of the dead trees began. A blur of purple slid into her vision behind Nahiri’s head-

“Look out-!”

Nahiri swerved in the air in time to miss the full force of the crusher’s blow, but the glancing hit still sent both planeswalkers tumbling from the sky, and rolling into the dust.

Nissa recovered in time to register the looming shadow over them. Nahiri must have noticed it too, and they flung themselves in opposite directions just as the fist struck again. The ground caved in under the blow. Fragments of chalk peppered the air.

The fist jolted back up, and Nissa braced to roll out of the way of a third strike. Then the disorientation hit her again, and she fell, clutching at her ears. The crab-eldrazi was right above her. There was so much _noise_ in the distortion. The light howled in her skull. A few feet away, she registered Nahiri scowling up at the air. The rock, which had fallen and embedded in the ground, glowed hot and streaked toward the crab-drone.

It never touched the creature. A blur of black and silver collided with the crab, and Sorin tore it neatly in half with a sideways stroke of his sword. The rock shot through the now-empty gap in the air, and glanced off the crusher’s face, cracking its skull across the bottom with the sound like a thunderbolt.

The fist still fell, square over Nissa.

This time she didn’t even flinch. With so little life in the surrounding earth, she sensed Ashaya’s approach with ease. The elemental threw himself over Nissa, intercepting the crusher’s blow and dragging the massive eldrazi off-balance. As it flailed backwards, Nissa noted that its other arm now ended in a ragged, purplish stump, and that Ashaya was splattered with similarly-colored gore. She sprang to her feet to face a second wave of the swarm with her comrades.

“Stop getting in my way, Sorin!” Nahiri had recalled her boulder, and split it in half to form two jagged, long-bladed gauntlets that covered her up to her forearm.

Sorin, coat still splattered with the remains of the crab-eldrazi, snarled.

“Keep your wits about you, then! I can’t coddle you all the time!”

“Just keep clear of me!” Nahiri shot back over her shoulder. She moved toward the trees, wading into the torrent of Kozilek’s eye-riddled drones and began cleaving their many limbs from their bodies.

“Oh, so now you _don’t_ want help.” Sorin flipped his sword in his hand and spun in the air, striking the crack in the crusher’s face. The skull splintered, and the nightmare that passed for a face underneath was visible for a moment, until Sorin shoved his sword through the gap up to its hilt. “Good! I’d hate to respond the wrong way and have you try to kill me again!”

“Focus!” Nissa shouted, already racing towards the crusher. Ashaya followed a step behind. Even stabbed through the face, the giant eldrazi swiped at Sorin. With a thought from Nissa, Ashaya pounced at the eldrazi’s arm, somersaulting through the air, a buzzsaw of wood and root and earth. The arm, already cut deep by Nissa’s sword, was ripped from the crusher’s shoulder with a sound like a hundred coils of rope tearing apart. Sorin pumped plumes of blood colored magic into the crack in its skull, and a second later it burst, showering them all with solids and semi-solids which Nissa decided not to think about too hard.

“You don’t get to use that against me!” Nahiri screamed, she’d pinned the largest drone in the latest wave to the dust with her gauntlet. “Not when you wouldn’t even listen to me after! Not after you left me to rot in that demon filled _hell_!”

“I think I can use just about whatever I want.” Sorin rode the crusher’s body to the rim of the pit, and leapt off, diving through a crowd of sinew-winged spawn. Each one he dealt a single blow, cleaving their bodies in half. “unless stating facts is somehow more heinous than genocide!”

Nissa ducked under the swipe of one lanky eldrazi, and found herself face to no-face with a trio of spawn that looked like floating mountains in miniature, with fibers of alien flesh strung Between the peaks.

_**Ah, that’s me. One moment.** _

The mountains froze in place, then dropped heavily to the ground, their weight embedding them in the fragile earth. Nissa was so dumbfounded by the sight that the gangly eldrazi’s second swipe caught her in the stomach, folding her over.

_Too many_.

_**Not too many. Not for you. Breathe, mover. See them for the mass they are.** _

Nissa fell to one side to dodge another blow. As she fell she drove the butt of her staff through the underside of the lanky eldrazi’s skull. The force of the strike lifted the creature up and over the rim of the pit, where it fell away without a sound.

Perhaps it was the quiet of their opponents, Nissa mused, that let her comrades keep up their screaming match.

“Do you think-” Nahiri shouldered aside one squat eldrazi, then stabbed another right through its obsidian crown. “-That I don’t regret what I did? That I’m not just as angry with myself as I am with you? I have fucking _nothing_ now. I was a protector. I kept the multiverse safe for centuries. Now I’m another gods-cursed killer.” Nahiri strode up the small pile of corpses, white face shining with sweat. “I wish every damn day I hadn’t brought that monster to your world!”

Sorin snarled, diving to the ground with a drone impaled on his sword. “Try acting like it, then!”

“What do you want to hear?” Nahiri roared, an upward swing bisecting one of Ulamog’s brood from groin to crown. “An apology? Do you want to hear sorry??”

Sorin sprang up, plunging his claws through the skulls of two more drones. “It would quite literally be the least you could do.”

“Please focus!” Nissa bellowed. An obsidian-crowned eldrazi with rows of eyes lining its bulging arms swiped at her once, twice, and shattered the rim of the pit with a scream that made the air ripple. They both stumbled, but Nissa kept her balance better than the eldrazi, and ran her sword through the flesh where a neck might have sprouted on any other creature. She jumped back and let it fall into the pit, knocking several other eldrazi down with it.

Sorin started to shout something back, but then the air was split by a vision-blurring screech, and a long-limbed eldrazi sprang from an overhanging branch, wrapping itself around Sorin, and slamming him flat into the dust. The other Eldrazi converged on him in a pile of pounding, flailing, grasping limbs.

Nissa and Nahiri paused for just a heartbeat, but that was enough time for their own opponents to capitalize on their distraction. One of Kozilek’s brood warped the space around Nahiri’s arm, slipping past the joint of her gauntlet with an oily sucking sound. The kor swore and screamed horribly as her arm went limp. Ashaya was just barely able to pull Nissa away from a disemboweling strike, but not quickly enough to keep the bony claws from drawing blood.

Nissa instinctively reached out for something. Dirt. Seed. Vines. There was nothing for miles, save for Ashaya. All that time spent coaxing growth back into the plane and she still found herself with nothing to call to their aid.

_**Your connection is with your plane, mover.** _

“I’d noticed, actually,” Nissa grunted, brandishing her sword. She cut down the spawn in front of her with a savage thrust, and began wading toward Sorin. Ashaya took her flank, providing a buffer and a plow through the crowd.

_**Well,** _ **this** **_is your plane now. And not just the dirt and the vines. You are no less able to-_ **

Nissa didn’t have the energy to focus on a retort, so she screamed, pushing forward with greater fury.

Sorin was nowhere in sight. More eldrazi piled onto the mass already pinning him down, unable to reach to the center, but adding weight with every drone.

“Sorin!” Nahiri’s scream matched and outstripped Nissa’s, as she hacked through the spawn with her good arm. “Don’t you dare die here, you selfish ass!” She hewed her way through the crowd around her with wide swipes, carving a gore-spattered path to the Sorin. Other eldrazi converged behind her as she started to carve through the pile. The blade of her limp arm flowed over her shoulders and head, hardening to shield her from the eldrazi piled onto her back.

That was the last glimpse Nissa had of her ally before the next wave of spawn roared up from the pit, joining the clutch that already beat down on her from the forest side. Her warpath came to a sudden, heavy stop. Even Ashaya could not wade any further through the crush of bodies.

_**Sword and stick won’t solve this, mover.** _

“It’s all I have,” Nissa screamed back, pressing closer to Ashaya’s back. “Look around you! They’ve cut me off! I can’t bring more of Zendikar here in time!”

_**Zendikar is here. It may not look like it once did. It may not look like how you plan it to look in the future. But it is still here. A rusted sword may not slice, but it can bludgeon.** _

To Nissa’s left, eldrazi were still pouring up from the pit. She could hear Nahiri bellowing somewhere far away. There were so many. Too many. Their presence flowed like a dirty stream across the leylines.

_**Will you swim against the current, or flow with it?** _

Nissa felt for Zendikar again. Delving desperately as she beat back drone after drone. This time she did not dig. She let her mind rest on the dust and desiccation right at her feet.

The voice that answered back was sickly. Strange. But it answered.

“I think,” Nissa grunted, “That I’ll dam up the whole stream.”

_**Magnificent.** _

Chalk blew out in geysers from the shattered edge of the pit, knocking several spawn back into the darkness as they tried to clamber onto level ground. A crack ripped down the side of the hole, bursting with even more dust.

A gaping maw tore itself free from the pit wall and reared up, Jaws of desiccated earth slammed down beyond the rim. Skeletal teeth punched into drones and spawn, pulping them to the ground.

Then the maw-thing, the soul of the wastes, fell backwards, dragging dozens of eldrazi with it, crushing the rest of the eldrazi rushing out of the pit against the walls. The grind of its fall echoed through the clearing, even as the eldrazi that remained pressed against Nissa all the fiercer.

_**Absolutely magnificent.** _

“Can’t...can’t do that again.” Nissa was panting hard. She could barely keep her sword and staff in front of her, barring the crush of eldritch limbs. “Check. Or however that damn game goes.”

_**The game is in disarray. You’ve made one important realization already: When the game has gone poorly, you always have the option of ripping the board out from under the arrangement of pieces that displease you. And now that they lie on the ground, let me give you another clue: who is to tell you that you may not take whatever piece you want for your own?** _

Nissa blinked, then furrowed her brow. Three spawn sprang at once, the bone-faced ones spreading their arms wide, the eyeball-covered one leaping at an angle that gravity should have made impossible. Nissa killed one with her sword, and found herself grappling with the other two.

They pressed in with rough shoves. They were not especially strong physically, and they blocked out the spawn gathering behind them, but the press of the whole crowd moved them forward. A sack-like limb struck Nissa across the jaw. Claws the color of twilight jabbed through the gaps. A slash tore through Nissa’s wrap and tunic, ripping flesh and scoring a nick on her ribs.

_**This is simple, mover. If your opponent would kill you, what must you do?** _

“Fuck off,” Nissa grunted.

_**I think you’ll find this germane to your present situation, mover.** _

Nissa almost laughed at that. At the bank-faced monsters pressing in around her. She felt something wet seeping into her tunic along her flank.

Suddenly Nissa felt as if she was seeing the eldrazi for the first time. Alien, yes. Horrifying in numbers, yes. But they were not gearhulks or elder dragons or gods-

_This is ridiculous. I’ve laid better opponents than this low without every drawing my blade._

_**Yes!** _

Nissa relaxed her muscles, and the crowd shoved her back immediately. She let them push. Ashaya flowed around her, embracing Nissa in a cage of wood with just enough space for her to fall back, as the limbs of the eldrazi scratched at the wood and grasped through the holes of the cage. Leaf-coated vines descended from the roof of Ashaya, wrapping around Nissa’s flank to staunch the flow of blood. She felt the lines of Ashaya’s vital force surrounding her, and, using that as her starting point, reached out to the eldrazi.

Their lines were confused. They were individuals, certainly. Yet in another, truer sense, parts of greater, more intricate wholes. Wholes that had been burned out of existence, leaving a hole in the multiverse. Leaving these lesser eldrazi severed. And yet fragments of the ties that had bound them to the larger entities remained; strands of power, severed at one end, but alive, in their own strange way.

Nissa seized those strands by the metaphysical handful, gathering them together and folding them into a single thread. Grasping them was tricky. Like snatching streams of current from the water. Some she fumbled. Some wriggled through her grip. But with each pull of her mind, more spawn twisted under her power. Her influence radiated outward from where she stood, and slowly a growing number of eldrazi stood still, providing her a bulwark against those that remained hostile.

Nahiri cried out.

Nissa couldn’t see the kor from her position, so she directed the drones closest to Ashaya to lift him up, over the heads and head-like appendages of the crowd. Ashaya peeled open as he rose, wooden limbs curving outward like petals to protect Nissa from the eldrazi on the ground, though none in the immediate vicinity made a move towards her that she did not direct.

Further out, spawn still fought their way towards her, and towards Nahiri. Nahiri had met them with a fury that outmatched anything the mindless drones could hope to amass. Her stone armor was cracked and pitted in a dozen places. She was bleeding from more wounds than Nissa could count. Still she shredded eldrazi, one-handed, bellowing and driving closer to the pile atop Sorin, inch by hard-won inch.

“I’m sorry, you miserable corpse! Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?!” Her armor flared red-hot, singing the drones closest to her. A second later it exploded outward, and debris ripping through skulls, sinew, and eldritch flesh. She thrust the hand of her good gauntlet into the pile, and heaved.

Sorin emerged. At least, his arm and upper body did, the rest still pinned under the swarm.

But he lived, and somehow, still moved. His other arm cut free of the pile, gripped tight around a strange, jagged-edged knife. Nissa sifted further into the horde, grabbing more and more of the eldrazi and commanding their stillness, reaching out for the mass that menaced her companions.

“Sorin!” Even from a short distance, Nissa could make out the look of manic relief on Nahiri’s face.

“I hear you.” Sorin gasped. His flesh was bruised and torn, his garments shredded ribbons of leather and cloth. He thrust with his strange knife, impaling a drone at Nahiri’s side before it could slash at her. It died, but Sorin’s arm crumpled under the creature’s weight. “I said I wanted an apology, not for you to die.” He thrashed, freeing his legs from the pile and turning his knife back on the eldrazi that had buried him.

Nahiri snorted. “Who’s dying? It’ll take more than-”

Sorin’s blow caught her in the shoulder. Nahiri stumbled to one side. A spike of obsidian punched through the air where she had stood, and then, just as easily, through Sorin’s breastplate, pinning him to the ground.

Nahiri was back on her feet in seconds, swatting aside spawn left and right, desperately trying to keep them from converging on Sorin again. Nissa grit her teeth. She could set the eldrazi she had under her influence on the ones that still fought against the planeswalkers, but that wouldn’t stop the hostile ones before they tore her allies apart. And if she couldn’t grab control of the rest in that time-

A bolt of black flew into Nissa’s periphery. Just as quickly, Ashaya lashed out with a tendril, deflecting another spike of obsidian into the dust. Nissa glanced up into the trees. A broad-chested drone was perched in the ashen branches, a long spiral of tapered black stone forming from its throat, aimed right at her. She scowled and, with a strain that drew blood from her nostrils, reached into the dead leylines of the wastes and severed the branch. The eldrazi plummeted to the forest floor, where it landed among the still-growing horde that surrounded Nahiri.

Nissa gasped. She tasted iron as her blood ran over her lips. _There’s too many_

_**You see them as individuals and grasp them as individuals, Mover. A general does not call soldiers by name, but by unit.** _

Nissa blinked, and furrowed her brow. “What do you-?”

The spike-shooting eldrazi reared up suddenly from the crowd, a thorn of obsidian still forming in its throat. It lunged through the crowd, bowling other drones aside, its spike aimed at Sorin’s head.

It made it within a foot of the vampire’s face, and not an inch closer. Nahiri grabbed the spike with her gauntlet, stopping it dead and, with a scream, super-heated the spike until it cooked the drone from the inside out.

Nissa watched for only a moment until her attention was grabbed by a shape lying in the space the drone had cleared when it charged. More of the round, mountain-shaped eldrazi lay unmoving in the dust, unmarked by any weapon. Emrakuls in miniature A quick glance around the clearing confirmed a dozen other like them, some lying where none of the fighting had taken place.

_**Dealt with all at once. Like snapping my finger.** _

Nissa shut her eyes. In her mind, the eldrazi had were bundled together like bales of hay, the ones she did not yet have under her control lying loose like straw littered in a field.

“Straw will take too long to gather,” She muttered.

The image in her mind shifted. The spawn of Kozilek were like silt pouring through of muddy, running water. Rough. Difficult to perceive. She formed a sieve in her mind, and dragged it across the stream, collecting up the alien consciousnesses of the brood. In one swipe, she had half the clearing frozen under her control.

Ulamog...Ulamog was salt. Drying. Desiccating. In her mind Nissa pictured the clearing as a table, and swept the grains of Ulamog’s spawn into a bowl.

When she opened her eyes, every creature was still. All except Nahiri.

Sorin hung at an angle with the ground, forming a triangle with his body on one side, the earth on another, and the spike as the third. Nahiri cracked the spike with a blow form her gauntlet and pulled Sorin off onto the ground. He was bruised over every inch of exposed skin, and a hole ran straight through his belly.

Nahiri, at a sudden loss of anything dangerous to hit, then channeled her fervent energies at Sorin.

“I’m sorry!” Nahiri screamed down at Sorin’s still form. “Please! I shouldn’t have done it! It was wrong!” She didn’t seem to even register the circle of drones around her, still and watching.

Softly, Nissa commanded the Eldrazi to lower her and Ashaya to the ground. There was a slight buzz in her head as she instructed the individuals holding them up, but it faded away as she tucked them back into the collective in her mind, and strode through the still crowd toward her comrades. Ashaya plodded behind, the chalky ground crumbling under each of his steps.

Nahiri looked up as Nissa neared. Her eyes were wild. Bloodshot. There was something between a smile and a grimace on her face.

“They can’t have killed him, right? He wouldn’t just die like this. Somewhere like this.”

Nissa grimaced. “Nahiri-”

The Kor’s sudden gasp cut her off.

Sorin’s head lolled, then slowly dragged upright. His eyes slid open and a groaned.

“No fear there.” He lifted a hand slowly and lay it across his breast. “I freed myself from an impaling trap made by the meanest lithomancer in the multiverse. What’s one spike from a cockroach?”

Nahiri’s set Sorin down in the dust. “I-I thought so!” She laughed. A rough, manic bark. She held the smile for a moment, then it fell off her face. “I’m sorry.”

Sorin shook his head. Barely a twitch of his neck to the side. “You don’t have to-”

“I’m sorry,” she echoed, soft. “I really am.”

His face twisted. “I can’t accept an apology from you. I don’t deserve forgiveness any more than you do. I hurt you in a way few people in the multiverse have been hurt, and I did it deliberately, to preserve my own selfish peace in the world.” He lay a hand on Nahiri’s. “I don’t want you to be what I pushed you toward being. Not when I know destruction isn’t what your soul is meant for. I’m sorry. That was selfish as well.”

Nahiri shook her head, rapid. “It’s no excuse. Whatever happened to me, it’s no excuse for...for...”

She stood, suddenly. She stared past Nissa like she was seeing something far off among the dead trees. Nahiri’s chest rose and fell with an increasingly furious pace, and she stepped over Sorin, past Nissa, almost to the edge of the eldrazi circle.

Then she just stood, staring.

Sorin and Nissa exchanged glances. The Vampire’ face was contorted as he pumped blood magic into the hole in his chest, but the contortion was mixed with...it was the same look Gideon used to make when he fretted over the others.

Nahiri fell to her knees, screaming in a sudden rage.

“ _Damn_ you!” Her fists broke the brittle ground easily. “Damn _me_! Another fucking killer!” Her fists quickly reduced the patch of ground to a conical pit of powder. “The sealing, the hedrons...none of it means a damned thing now!”

“You kept your plane alive for millennia!” Sorin shouted, horse. There was a horrible sucking sound as he yelled, and Nissa realized with a start that he only had one inflated lung. “That’s not nothing.” He struggled upright, and Nissa ran forward to grab him under the arm before he collapsed again. He wheezed, and looked up at Nissa. “Thank you.”

They ambled over to Nahiri. Sorin knelt nest to her, head bowed. “What I did to you...where I left you. I owe you as much of an apology.”

“You didn’t kill anyone to hurt me. Not on purpose.” Nahiri’s response was ragged; barely a whisper through a scream-sore throat. “You were a fucking selfish bastard but you didn’t try to kill anyone other than me. I’m worse than you.”

“Maybe.” Sorin said it automatically. “Probably. I still wronged you.”

Nahiri shuddered suddenly, with a violent sob. She reached out and seized a handful of Sorin’s torn sleeve, and slammed her other fist against the dusty ground. Her shoulders shook, and her hand twisted the leather around. Sorin did not move or back away. Nissa wondered if _she_ should.

“I’m a murderer! Evil! I don’t deserve anything!”

“That’s true,” Nissa whispered. She leaned back against Ashaya, holding the vine-bandages wrapped tight around her side. “But life’s not about what we deserve; it’s about what do.” Her legs started to buckle, and she slid down the elemental’s leg to sit in the dust. “What we’ll do next.”

Nahiri drew in a dry, rattling breath, and shuffled around to face Nissa. “Next?”

“This...this is good, what we did here today. Together. Look how much fewer we’ve made the spawn that still threaten our world.” Nissa looked down at the waste beneath her. “Look at how much world remains to be saved.” She lifted her head and looked from Sorin to Nahiri. “You can heal. You can build. I can grow. And if you can work with each other, I would...happily work with you.”

Sorin nodded, slow, and looked to Nahiri. She returned his gaze with eyes red and watering, but unblinking.

“No forgiveness.” She held out her hand to him. “We build something new, starting today.”

“That...that works for me.” He grasped her hand, and they shook; a quick, singular motion. He turned to Nissa, and inclined his head. “And I hope we might do the same. My actions against you and toward your world-”

“When I said I didn’t care, I meant it. And I meant nothing of malice against either of you.” Nissa jabbed a head at her temple. “I’ve had this force in my head for some time now. By most sane definitions it is evil, a thing that’s twisted and killed millions. Still I tolerate it. I listen to it. I try to use its guidance to do good, because I do not have the power to oppose it, and because the alternative is to leave it unattended.”

_**My guidance** _ **has** **_been of great use._ **

“I had a friend who believed in justice. Who believed that there were good actions in the world, and wrong ones, and that the latter should be opposed without question.” Something rose up in Nissa’s chest, but she forced in down, breathing slow to calm her heartbeat. “But he believed in every person’s capacity for good, no matter their past. I can’t say if he was right in the end, only that that sort of justice is the only kind that’s ever made sense to me.” Her arms felt heavy, but Ashaya lifted his own for her. “So please. Let’s do better, and let our mistakes be lessons, not yokes.”

The other two said nothing, though Nahiri nodded, slowly. Sorin leaned forward, hand still pressed to his breast, fingers still weaving healing magic.

Silence and dust drifted through the clearing. When the latter settled, only silence remained.

* * *

They sat around another stone fire that night, back where the chalk wastes gave way to the green remains of Oran-Rief. Nissa sat cross-legged in front of the stone, both hands laid in the comforting sponginess of the moss. The remaining spawn, a little under four-hundred by Nahiri’s count, all lay a distance away, huddled together in a crude corral of vines and stone bells to alert the trio if they starting moving while Nissa slept.

Her head was full of buzzing, and there was a throbbing ache behind her eyes.

But it was better than their last rest. The tension had gone out of her companions, and Nissa could breath easier.

“There’s pockets all over,” Nahiri said over a supper of roasted tubers and wild onions. She picked at her food with her left hand, her right still hanging limp in a sling. “Not just spawn, but opportunists taking advantage of ruined settlements and wild creatures displaced by the dead stretches on the plane. We could, the three of us, we could give those Zendikari a better chance at starting their lives over.”

Nissa nodded. She was leaned up against Ashaya, moving as little as possible to not disturb the lacerations along her side.

“That’s true, though I would like to set aside time to continue replenishing the forests. Oran-Rief is a daunting project, and I still hold out hope for restoring Bala Ged to a place for the elves.”

“Is it true, the stories about the elemental?” Nahiri was much more eager to talk since the battle.

_**All the words unsaid over the past week.** _

“Yes. Yarok, they call it. Another creature we may have to coexist with.” Nissa dared a small smile. “But, coexisting is something we’re all getting much better at.”

Nahiri nodded, suddenly interested in wolfing down the rest of her supper. Sorin just nodded from where he reclined on a stone slate cushioned with harvested moss. Faint wisps of blood magic crawled over his form, and the bruises that mottled his body were beginning to receding by bits. He pointed in the direction of the spawn. “Will they be coming?”

“Until I can find something useful for them to do. There is a strain, trying to keep them in line,” Nissa noted after a time. “I expect we may still need to face more in the days to come.”

“Not the companions I expected,” Nahiri observed through a mouthful of food. “But...beats having enemies, I guess. Were you ever able to track down Ugin?” She asked, looking to Sorin.

“Not a sign since Tarkir. When it comes to that dragon, I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The barest hint of a smile crawled over Sorin’s face. “Remember how surprised we were to find out he was in contact and collaboration with so many other walkers? Even in the middle of that accursed mess on Ravnica?”

Nissa lowered a piece of onion from her mouth. The memory of the spirit dragon, bright and looming, flashed briefly in her mind. He’d been there at the end last time. He’d spoken to her. To Jace. To...to Gideon and-

“Of course. I stopped trying to kill you, I was so intrigued.” Nahiri chewed her lip. “Do you think it’s true?”

Sorin glanced over to Nissa. “The mind-mage was your companion, right? Do you trust him?”

“With my life,” Nissa said, soft. She pressed down another lump in her chest.

“What about you?” Nahiri asked Nissa. “You didn’t-I never even thought to ask how your companions fared after the...well, the war, I guess we’re calling it. The mind-mage and the pyromancer and-”

“We’re fine,” Nissa replied. “All fine.”

“Ah.” Nahiri nodded.

“More hands couldn’t hurt here,” Sorin ventured. “If we can’t get the spirit dragon...I don’t know how many of your companions are able and willing to help, but I saw many talents on display against Bolas that would help here. The time mage, certainly. I believe I saw another elf calling upon dead spirits as well. Plenty of those to go around. Even the fire-flinger might be useful for clearing out-”

Nissa didn’t hear the rest as she, much to everyone’s surprise, hunched over and started sobbing.

“...but maybe not...?” Sorin finished.

Nissa tried to catch her breath, but she could not stop the heaving in her lungs, and the twisting of her face as tears spilled out over her chin and into her lap.

The other two didn’t say anything right away. Through shudders Nissa could see them exchange nervous glances.

“I’m sorry,” She muttered, choking out the words between sobs. “Sorry, I-”

“It’s fine.” They said it together automatically. Nahiri leapt up from her spot to amble over and sit next to Nissa. Nissa dug her fingers deeper into the ground, if only to keep herself from covering up her face.

Nahiri lifted her good hand, and it hovered over her own lap a moment before she moved to rest it on Nissa’s shoulder. Nissa shook her head. A tight, frantic shudder that might have been mistaken for more shakes from her crying, but Nahiri took her hand back all the same.

“I’m sorry.” Nahiri lay the hand instead on the grass next to Nissa’s. “I owe you one as well. If I...if _we_ distressed you – I mean, if we acted in such a poor way as to-”

“No.” Nissa shook her head, a more deliberate movement this time. “Not you.

“Mostly not you,” she added.

Sorin cleared his throat. “Is it...is it something we can help with?” The words stumbled out from him so unnaturally that Nissa almost laughed through her tears.

“I-no? I don’t know.”

The other two exchanged another look. What look, Nissa couldn’t say, but even through blurred eyes she could see them turn toward each other.

“Is it the pyromancer?” Sorin asked after a moment. “Did something happen to-”

“I don’t _know!_ ” Nissa pulled up a fist and punched the ground, grinding her knuckles into the moss. “I haven’t seen Chandra in _months!_ I – she came to see me and then she just-she just...”

“What did she do?” Nahiri’s own fingers clenched, and the heat from the stone rose perceptibly. “Did she hurt-”

Nissa shook her head. “She just...she just came and left. And I _let_ her. I stood there like an idiot and I just _let_ her.” She brought her elbow up and coughed into it. Snot was starting to run down to her lips. “I’m sorry, this isn’t important, I just-”

“Clearly it’s important to you,” Sorin interrupted. “So it is, by definition, important.”

Nissa shook her head. “I just wanted her to be _happy_ . She said distance was what she needed, and I let her...of course I let her go. I _love_ her. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

Sorin drew and released a breath in a long sigh. “You need to be a bit more selfish sometimes.”

“And what?” Nissa replied. “Force her to stay with me? Make her do something that will make her miserable?”

“You said yourself,” Sorin returned after a short silence, “that you didn’t even tell her how you felt. That you let her make assumptions from your silence.”

“What would _you_ know?”

“It’s what you did last night,” Nahiri cut in. “Until I provoked you. Um, sorry for that.”

“She said she wasn’t right for me.” Nissa steadied herself, and drew in a short, rattling breath. “She said...she knows I like the quiet sometimes. I liked that about her, that she understood that. But then she said she couldn’t-that we couldn’t be...I don’t know.” She brought the back of her glove up to clear her eyes. “She thought...she thought I wouldn’t have made space for her in my life. That I wouldn’t have liked making space for her in my life” She breathed in again, longer this time, steadying herself.

“Would you have?” Nahiri kept her voice low, just loud enough for the three of them.

“I think so.” Nissa lifted her head. Sorin had sat up and to face them. “It wasn’t the firs thing on my mind when we parted the first time. There was too much work for me here. But I did think about it when I came back again, after Ravnica, but there was still so much to do, and...” She choked again. “I took too long. I didn’t...I needed more _time_. I didn’t think she’d just-”

“That’s not your fault for needing time,” Sorin said. “No matter what came of it, there’s no shame in thinking through a hard decision.”

“ _Months_ though?” Nahiri said. “I mean – sorry, that’s not the point.” She lifted her hand again tentatively, but put it back down on the moss without Nissa having to say anything or shake her head. “It’s...it’s been a strange time for all of us, since, well since we were all together last. A hard time for introspection.”

“I don’t think she _had_ to wait for me,” Nissa whispered. “I just wish she had.”

For a while there was no sound but the occasional hiss of the wind carrying a stray leaf into the stone. The trails down Nissa’s face started to dry, and she drew in slow breaths of the cool night air.

“Your paths could easily cross again,” Sorin offered, eventually. “She knows where you are, and even if you don’t-”

“I do.”

“...what?”

“I do,” Nissa said. “I mean, I could know. I can feel many things in the leylines now. More and more since I traveled with the Gatewatch. Since...since Emrakul began speaking to me. If I focus-” Nissa held out her hand, and channeled mana into the leylines that threaded through the air. There were so many on Zendikar. The plane was so abundantly alive in a way that so few other planes were.

“-She burns brighter than anyone I’ve ever met. If I wanted to – that is, if I felt it was right, I could just follow that light.”

“So why don’t you?” Nahiri leaned in, voice louder now. “Go and tell her what you told us.”

“She said we weren’t right for each other. What if she still feels that way?”

“Then you’ll have tried,” Nahiri replied. “You’ll have told her how you feel about her, and she can make her decision knowing what you want. Otherwise she’ll just go on thinking that she made a choice that you agreed with, and...well, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.”

Nissa tensed. The thought of doing just that had occurred to her weeks ago, and seemed laughably implausible since then. Nahiri suggested it like a real possibility, but...going to Chandra? Using her words to express whatever it was she felt for her? It made Nissa’s whole body seize up from the inside out. But if she could bring the right words…

“I...think I would like that,” Nissa said at last. “But, even now, I don’t know that I’ve given it the thought it deserves.”

“Then take the time,” Sorin said. “You’ve got us now, as long as you need us. You don’t need to run yourself as ragged as a one-elf savior across the whole plane. We’ll all do our good work, and we’ll be your counsel as you work through your thoughts. And when you’re ready, whenever that might be, you can go to her with the right words.”

Nahiri nodded. “If you want our help, of course.”

Nissa was silent a long while. Her head still ached from the commotion and confrontation of the day. Her body still throbbed with pain from a dozen wounds, and the alien tinge of the eldrazi spawn still crawled along her body like a new limb. She didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to do anything but close her eyes and rest.

Still, the comfort of caring company made the night just a degree less cold.

“I think...I think I would like that. Thank you.”

* * *

_**Mover, before you sleep…** _

Nissa groaned softly. She had _just_ lay her head down and begun to close her eyes. The soft ground felt like a balm against her buzzing scalp, she had only a few hours before Nahiri woke her for her turn at night watch, and she wanted nothing more than the quiet of sleep.

_**If you’d rather wait...though I find the sooner the debrief-** _

“No, let’s do this now,” she muttered, keeping her whisper low.

_**You’ve added great power unto yourself. We’ll discuss that.** _

Nissa waited for Emrakul to say more. The eldrazi titan remained silent.

“I’ve reached out and taken control of another mind. Minds. Or lack of a mind. Several voids where minds should be. I’m not sure I understand entirely _what_ I’m going to do with them, and I’m not sure that qualifies as becoming more powerful.

_**You used one method to add the power of my brothers’ pieces to yourself. You used another to add the power of your companions, the binders. Even the mere act of finding a new application for an existing competency is an act of growing power.** _

“Yes. Nissa poked wearily at her connection to the herd of drones off in the wastes. “That will take...it will take some getting used to. And there’s peace between Sorin and Nahiri now. I’m not certain how much of that was me, to be honest.”

_**You facilitated a renewal of their companionship. Indirect intervention is still intervention. It’s all part of becoming powerful.** _

Nissa blinked. “I...I’m pleased to have them as allies. As friends, even. But I don’t know what you...I haven’t been sapping their powers or taking power from them or-”

_**Friends are power stored in other bodies. A friend made is power added unto yourself, and better still, power that aids you willingly. Joyfully.** _

The earlier battle flashed in Nissa’s mind. The crush of bodies. Emrakul’s voice booming in her mind all the while…

“If my opponent is about to kill me, make them my friend.”

_**Yes.** _

“I don’t know how to feel about that. What if making a friend means conceding part of who I am?”

_**Then you get to decide if it’s worth it to you. Look around though, and I think you’ll find you’ve conceded very little.** _

“I’ve conceded to interrupt my work healing the plane. I’ve conceded to speak the language of the eldrazi. To let them into my mind.”

Emrakul was silent a long moment.

_**You’ve spoken my language with me for some time now. Has it not been worth your while?** _

“...let’s talk about that later.”

_**...has my presence been unwelcome?** _

“No but...having someone else’s thoughts in your head all the time makes it challenging to know what thoughts are your own.”

_**This is so. I do intend only to advise, mover. I do not wish to control a fellow controller.** _

“I’m glad,” Nissa whispered. “And glad you’ve been less prone to objecting to our fight against your...pieces.”

**I _am not beyond learning, mover. And any sentimentality for what remains of my brothers does no good. All in the past, as you said to the_ _binders_ _._**

Nissa nodded vaguely. Her eyes were growing heavier by the minute.

_**On the topic of my presence, do you wish for the possibility of dreaming of the burner tonight?** _

“Why do you call her that?” Nissa’s eyes opened slightly. “Burner? She had a name, you know. _I_ have a name.”

_**She is defined by her burning. That is what binds the two of you.** _

Nissa pursed her lips. “That’s all you think binds us? That we killed eldrazi together?”

_**The burning of my brothers is not what defines her to you, Mover. It is her mind that burns for you, so she is the burner.** _

_**It seems obvious to me, at least** _, Emrakul added.

“You call _them_ the binders.” Nissa nodded at Nahiri's sleeping form, and at Sorin, hovering further away.

_**They bound me. It was a significant, defining thing that they did.** _

“That’s not what defines them to me.”

_**It’s not always about you.** _

“Mm.” Nissa laid her head back. “Sure.”

_**Mover...the burner?** _

Nissa stared up a long while, past the looming edge of the hedron mass overhead. A thousand pinpricks of starlight filled the open stretch of night sky beyond that.

“Not tonight. If I dream of her...” Nissa lapsed. A pair of glints, like from twin panes of glass filled her mind, along with a brush of cinnamon. “If she’s in my mind, I prefer she remain there.”

Emrakul did not reply, but a warm rush crawled along the back of Nissa’s scalp as her eyes slid shut.

*


	4. Chandra

“Chandra Nalaar? Dr. Jenezk will see you now”

Chandra rose from the bench and followed the thrull across a small lobby. She was used to the thrulls by now, after so much time on Ravnica, and this one did not look significantly different from any she had encountered before. Still, it was eery how little its appearance fit its calm, pleasant voice.

The thrull seemed to sense her unease and gave what it probably thought was a reassuring nod as it opened the door to the doctor’s office.

“Welcome, Miss Nalaar.”” Dr. Jenezk was came to the door and offered her hand, which Chandra took. “Or is ‘Chandra’ better?”

Jenezk was about a head shorter than Chandra, round, and had a smile that reminded her of Ms. Pashiri’s back home. She looked barely a few years older than Chandra. The office itself was walled with panels of chocolate-colored wood. A broad skylight gave the whole place a warm glow. Jenezk’s immaculately white robes, trimmed with gold dust on black, stood out against the dark backdrop.

“Oh, Chandra’s great. Uh, nice room.”

“Thank you!” Dr. Jenezk’s voice soft and higher-pitched than Chandra had expected. “It’s all naturally grown, and produced by crafters with no guild affiliations. A lot of us do our rooms with Selesnyan-raised wood, but between you and me I’m not fully comfortable with working in a place covered in still-living wood.”

“Oh, cool. Is that cheaper than the guild prices?”

“Goodness no, almost 50% more expensive. I just think it’s important to support local businesses” Jenezk gestured to the center of the room, where three chairs were arranged. Two cushioned, one wood, all alongside a low couch upholstered in black velvet. “Whichever you’re most comfortable with. Or if you’d like to stand.” She indicated a pale circle of worn carpet that ran around the furniture. “Pacers are welcome, as you can see.”

“Uh, thanks.” Chandra made a beeline for the cushioned chair and fell into it. “This is fine.”

“Excellent.” Jenezk settled into the chair opposite. “How was the walk in?”

“Pretty good.” Chandra shrugged. “I um, I’m taking temporary lodgings with a friend right now, and it was actually pretty close by.”

“Ah, lodging with Jace and Vraska?”

“Nah. they’ve kind of got their couple thing going on, so it’s actually just me and another friend from, uh...out of town, using one of Jace’s old places. While we’re doing a job in the district. But yeah, the closeness is nice cause I, uh, really needed a shower after our day today. Those fancy knights at the door probably would have kicked me out of the building otherwise.”

Jenezk smiled, soft, and nodded. “We do have facilities for clients on-site to wash up if you ever need them. Part of the ‘luxury service’ of it all. No charge of course,” she added, bit more seriously. “I have to rush out of the house more mornings than not, so I can vouch for the convenience.”

“Thanks, uh, maybe.” Chandra cracked a small grin. “It _would be_ sort of fun to march past all those priests at the door covered in sewage.”

Jenezk laughed at that, shaking quietly, like she wanted to chuckle a little louder.

“Warn me if you do. I’d love to see their faces.” She grinned, looking out in the direction of the door. “Not really one for all the pomp and finery?”

“It’s alright,” Chandra shrugged. “I mean, it really is nice to have a nice place, it’s just the people in fancy places are usually just…the worst.”

The corner of Jenezk’s mouth twitched up in a smirk.

Chandra’s cheeks got warm. “Oh, uh, no offense.”

Another laugh. “All fine, all fine. Honest is the best thing you can be here, and I can’t really get offended at the truth.” She shifted in her seat, leaning closer to Chandra. “That said, if we find this office doesn’t suit your sessions, we can find another location a little more agreeable. We rent properties with the Selesnya and the Simic that are a bit more...natural, if you prefer.”

“Oh, here’s fine for now.”

“Just let me know.” Jenezk settled back into her chair. “In any case, Jace gave me the impression that you do odd jobs. What sort of work do you find yourself involved in these days?”

* * *

“Behind you!”

Chandra dropped into a crouch without turning, sinking up to her chest in the filthy water. A blue-metal jackal skull glinted above her, empty eyes looking down.

Samut’s sword hit the eternal’s chest like a thunder-crack, splitting the lazotep breast and ripping through the other side. It fell, cut nearly all the way through, a dark flame of conjuring sputtering between its fingers. The dying fire hissed and produced a foul smoke as it hit the water.

Something stirred beneath the sewage just behind Samut. Chandra’s view was blocked by her fellow planeswalker’s, but she thrust a hand out to either side of Samut’s waist, and let loose twin jets of flame.

The lazotep crocodile started cooking before its lunge carried it fully out of the water. The force of the direct stream caught it in the mouth, flinging its now-headless body back into the sewage.

“Thanks,” Chandra gasped, glancing up at Samut.

“A pleasure as always.” Samut flashed a grin and leapt over Chandra’s head. Three more eternals were marching down the tunnel, churning the waist-deep filth.

Chandra cursed under her breath. She had missed the jackal mage sneaking up on her, and now the other eternals had probably heard the sound of Samut breaking through the zombie to save her.

She whirled to her feet, water flinging off of her mail and gauntlets. Samut was charging the center eternal, arcs of lightning sparking off her limbs. She rose up through the sewage, and a second later her sandals were leaving electrified droplets in the air behind her as she sprinted across the surface.

The eternals raised their spears as one, forming a barrier of razor tips.

Chandra released another double-stream of fire. Wide, billowing clouds of flame licked the sewer walls, swallowing up the eternal to the left and on the right. They fell back, trying to douse the blaze in the sewage. Their weapons dropped

Samut parried the remaining spear and lashed out with a kick, knocking the middle eternal’s head clean off its shoulders. Before the other two could fully recover, she’d severed an arm off each, and began the grim process of dismantling them blow by blow, limb by limb.

Chandra slogged down the tunnel past Samut, arms still raised and glowing hot. Nothing else emerged from the sewage, but the distinct ring of metal on metal was coming from further along the bend.

“All clear!” Samut called, pushing through the waters behind Chandra. Stealth was well outside the question now.

“Watch my back,” Chandra called back. She drew back a hand over her shoulder and a fireball ignited in front of her palm. Focusing on the compact ball of heat, Chandra approached the bend, prepared to throw.”

“Hold!”

Chandra’s fingers flexed back into her palm as a metal-clad hand waved out from around the corner. A massive form followed after it, displacing a small wave of water with every step.

“All clear on this end.” The figure’s voice was high-pitched and fuzzy, belying their barreled, bulging chest. On top of the massive torso sat a head several sizes too small, and sealed in a lantern-like helmet of gold-polished brass. Their back was strapped with so many contraptions, coils, and blinking lights that Chandra felt like an entire factory was looking down on her. The sewage barely came up to their knee.

Chandra let her arms fall to her side and let out a breath of relief “All clear, Tiz.” She looked past the Izzet cyclops. The tunnel curved around and back down the way Tizmugah had come.

“Dead end then?” Samut asked.

Tizmugah’s head began vibrating, and their helmet emitted a low, static note that Chandra and Samut had come to recognize as a negative response.

“Another tunnel thirty meters back that way. Zamosk took the weirds down that way to investigate. I came to make sure we could regroup.” The cyclops turned and sloshed back the way they came, beckoning for the other two to follow.

They fell in behind Tizmugah. Samut stowed her swords in slings at her waist, and Chandra did a quick inspection of her gloves and regulators for damage.

“So it was just talking?” Samut asked as they turned down the new tunnel. “Not even about anything in particular?”

“Yeah,” Chandra replied. “Kinda basic stuff. I guess they have to get to know you before, like, they _really_ get into your head.” She shrugged. “It’s only the first session, so, I’m trying to stay open-minded.”

“How is the woman who’s helping you?”

“She’s nice. Very cheerful.” Chandra pulled a long strand of...something from around the tubing of her regulator. “I can’t tell if she’s trying to hard to be all ‘oh, I’m not like the other Orzhov,’ or if she’s actually more down to earth.”

Samut clicked her tongue. “Well, give it time, I suppose? I say trust everyone once.”

“That’s fair.”

“If I might,” Tizmugah offered from ahead. “Most people I’ve met who _aren’t_ down to earth do a bad job of pretending to be so long-term.” They turned to face Chandra and Samut, trudging backwards through the sludge, single lantern-eye illuminating the space above their heads. “We have a lot of people like that in the league.”

“Hm.” Chandra nodded. “Uh, I don’t suppose _you’ve_ ever been to an Orzhov therapist, Tiz?”

Tizmugah shook their head. “Master Zarek has begun to include non-affiliated therapists in health plans for guild members, but too many of the older magewrights have bad memories of the brainwashing practices the Orzhov confessors used to practice, so anyone in the league who does see a syndicate shrink does it on their own dime. My regular unit does have a Simic Psychobiomancer who attends to us on request.”

“Hm.” Chandra nodded. “I understand most of those terms.”

“What sort of problems do _your_ helpers assist with?” Samut asked.

Tizmugah shrugged, shifting the massive power pack slung across their shoulders three feet higher. “The usual sorts of things. Frustrations with fellow workers. Stress from the excitement of working all hours in an Izzet lab. Astrapophobia.”

They turned another corner and started ascending. The new tunnel sloped upward at a gentle angle, the pooled muck dropping from waist to knee-level, then to ankle and toe until they were covering (mostly) dry ground. The rest of their current expedition group crouched at the top of the slope: A long-maned Golgari guide-troll named Zamosk, and three tall, vaguely human-shaped creatures that looked like blue gelatin filled with fire. Weirds. Izzet elementals Tizmugah had introduced as “Hydropyrics.”

“A farm,” Zamosk hissed, pointing down and ahead.

Chandra squinted. Beyond her teammates the tunnel looked pitch-black. It wasn’t until she crested the rise that she realized, scrambling backwards, that the tunnel fell sharply downward, and that she had been looking at the tar-black ceiling of a steep slope. About ten feet down the passageway flared out into an inverted cone, opening onto a cavern easily larger than most buildings on Ravnica. A green-and-purple glow rose from the ground, illuminating layers of rot and fungus, all arrayed in untidy rows.

“Odd,” Tizmugah whispered as best as their tinny voice allowed. They prodded a panel on their gauntlet and a small blue hologram sprang out of an illuminated slot along the back of their palm. “The league had a power plant located here. Only abandoned in the last four months.”

“The swarm reclaims quickly,” Zamosk replied, with a note of pride in her voice. “And _we_ must act quickly.” She gestured again down the tunnel, indicating the figures that stalked among the rows.

Chandra knelt next to Samut and scanned the spore-lit field. Eternals, glints of dark blue among the fungus, were patrolling. Other figures, elves or humans by the look of them, harvested and threw nervous glances over their shoulders every time one of the zombies passed.

“Interesting,” Samut whispered. “No wonder the other eternals didn’t want us coming this way.”

“And that there,” One of the weirds added, in a rough, gurgling voice. “That’s new, isn’t it? Those bonebodies never were much chatty before.”

Two of the eternals had cornered a troll against a wall of the farm. They were too far away to make out anything distinct, but from the look of their gestures they were...arguing?”

Chandra looked over at Samut. “I’ve uh...I don’t think the eternals are supposed to talk.”

“They are not.” Samut’s face was furrowed with anger and confusion.

“That’ll be the overseer,” Zamosk hissed, pointing at the troll. “The one they’re menacing. Not devkarin, obviously, but devkarin aligned,” she added, spitting on the ground. “Would serve him right, not showing proper respect for lady Vraska but...” She pursed her knobby lips. “...Vraska wouldn’t do this.”

“Well whoever’s done it, let’s sort that out later, yeah?” Another of the weirds murmured. It shifted the long, mizzium pike in its arms and pointed it down into the farm-cavern. “We doing this?”

The other looked to Tizmugah, who was still fiddling with their gauntlet, holograms flashing and changing as they did so. “We are. Will getting down be a problem for anyone?”

“I’d be a poor excuse for a troll if I couldn’t scale a simple shaft.” Zamosk flexed her arms, and started to scuttle down.

“Alright, and my boys here can jump,” Tizmugah said, as the weirds positioned themselves to leap, weapons drawn. “You two?”

“I can run down,” Samut grunted. She was clearly perturbed by the new behavior of the eternals.

Tizmugah looked over at Chandra.

“Well,” Chandra exhaled, and slipped her goggles back over her eyes. “If all my friends are jumping down a pit, why not?”

“Good. Let’s clear them out.”

* * *

Chandra chose to pace for the second session. Her legs protested every step, but she suspected that if she collapsed into one of Dr. Jenezk’s chairs she’d never be able to stand up again.

“Was Jace your first friend in the city?” Jenezk was seated in the same place, hand resting on a wooden slate with parchment clipped to it.

“Um, first friend _from_ Ravnica. From the city. We met, uh...well, elsewhere.”

Jenezk nodded. “During work?”

“Something like that. It was a kind of confrontational first meeting. Conflicting objectives. Different clients.” The corner of Chandra’s mouth lifted with the ghost of a grin. “Didn’t really like the guy the first couple times we met.”

“Friends come from the oddest places.” Jenezk rapped her fingers once over her board. “What was it that changed your mind about him?””

“I guess...at some point we found ourselves on the same side enough times.” Chandra drifted past a bookshelf built into the walls, filled with gold-stamped tomes. “And, I don’t know, I guess I didn’t have a lot of friends like me. Or even around my own age. And he’s gotten a lot better over the years I’ve known him.”

“It must have helped that you have so many – well, that is, a decent number of shared friends?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Chandra came to a stop behind the stuffed chair opposite Jenezk and rested her forearms on it. “Uh, Gids – Gideon, uh...him I knew before Jace and I really became friends, but yeah, a lot of the others I met after Jace and I started working together. A lot of friends from work. Maybe that’s the problem,” she offered with a laugh that wouldn’t quite come out her throat all the way, “not enough people to hang out with that I don’t regularly risk my life with.”

“They can be a lot different than friends you spend more leisure time with,” Jenezk agreed with a sympathetic nod. “ _Did_ you get to enjoy much down time with the group you worked with?”

“Some? There were stretches on Ravnica, and a much shorter one on...well, elsewhere. My hometown.” Chandra laced her fingers together. “They were nice stretches though. We worked well together, and I think we lived well together, even if we didn’t always get along. I, uh, I never had brothers or sisters, but I think it was something like that? Even Liliana was...” Chandra shook her head. “For a while it felt like we’d become something...permanent? Or maybe just, uh, longer lasting than we turned out to be.”

“Was Liliana another of your companions?”

Chandra nodded. “She was. You uh, you probably heard the name when...”

“Ah. The same Liliana the Firemi-the guildpact, that is, sentenced?”

Chandra nodded. “I don’t know what you must think of her, but-”

“What I think isn’t what matters.” Jenezk offered Chandra a small smile. “If she was dear to you, she was dear to you.”

Chandra nodded. “I guess she was. Despite everything.” She laughed. “Sort of...sort of the big sister I never had. If only for a little while. Bad influence, but I know she cared about us, even if it was in a kind of selfish way.” She ran a thumb along her collar. The metal there was slick with grease and grime. “She had a lot of her own issues that she kept from us for a long time, and that made it hard to really...connect with her, I guess. I don’t think she got the time she needed to deal with them in the end. All this shit with Bolas and the invasion just came at us too fast and, I mean, I never even got to say good bye to her before everything-”

Chandra squinted, and started as something wet trickled out the corner of her eye. She raised a hand to cover her face.

“Here.” Jenezk sprang up with a surprising deftness and handed Chandra a crisp black cloth.

“Thanks.” Chandra pressed it to her face, and held it their. “Um, I still miss her. She made life fun and...well I don’t think...I don’t think it’s fair what happened to her.”

“No?”

“She didn’t want to do any of what she did. I know she didn’t. I don’t...I don’t forgive her for betraying us, but I wish she had had a chance to come back to us. I wish they both had had a chance.”

Her face contorted, and she pressed the cloth harder to her face, and around her nose. Her shoulders shook once before she could steady them.

“That’s Liliana...and Gideon?” Jenezk asked, soft after a minute.

“Yeah.” Chandra pinched the cloth against her eyes, and pulled it away. “I get why...I get why he did what he did. He believed in her more than any of us. And I love him for that. But, um, I guess I just wish he was still here. Like, I understand why he did what he did, but...” She trailed off.

“You’re allowed to miss your friend.”

Chandra propped one elbow up on the top of the chair and dug her fingers into her hair. “Am I allowed to wish he hadn’t done it?”

“I think that’s a reasonable thing to want, yes.”

“It’s just...he spent all his life doing shit for other people. Just _once_ , couldn’t he have been a little selfish? I mean, I didn’t want Lili to just die like that either, but...fuck, you know? It’s just-” Chandra coughed as her chest heaved again, but she swallowed her tears. “-it’s just that...Lili made her choice, and I don’t even mean to betray _us_. She turned on Bolas and she must have known he was going to kill her but she did it anyways and she was okay with that. And yeah that fucking sucks that she had to make that choice but then? Gideon just...decides he needs to be a hero again? I mean, did he even think how that would leave the rest of us??”

Chandra pulled her fingers out from her hair and covered her mouth. She stared off at a corner of the carpet.

“Did we matter that little to him?”

“Most times when the people we love hurt us with their actions, they aren’t even thinking of us.” Jenezk stood and trundled over to her desk. “And I don’t mean that they don’t care, but...well you have to remember that the things we do are often internally driven. Likely he thought the world of you and his other friends, but sometimes whatever is inside us drives us harder than we care to admit.”

“...I guess.” Chandra pressed the cloth against the side of her face, mopping up more tears. “It’s just...it felt like that was all he had, you know? Like all he had in life was that he could keep throwing himself in front of dangerous shit to protect the rest of us because he wasn’t able to protect the friends from his childhood. It was a whole thing for him, and I guess I thought...I hoped he wasn’t dealing with that guilt anymore. I fucking hate that the universe decided to justify his death-wish and...and...” Chandra fell silent, her hand dragging the cloth across to the other side of her face to mop up the mess of her tears.

“That does sound upsetting,” Jenezk replied at last, low. “And as with everything else, I think you’re justified in being upset.” She picked up a pitcher from her desk and a small crystal cup. She tipped the pitcher and water splashed into the glass. “None of that makes you a bad friend, though. In fact, I think it makes you a wonderful friend that you noticed these things about Gideon, and that you felt concerned for him.”

Chandra nodded, sniffing.

“I’m not sure how it is on your wor...your home, that is,” Jenezk continued. “But here on Ravnica we deal with lingering spirits quite a lot, doubly so in my guild.” She stopped and pursed her lips. “Well, under the old management, anyways. The point being that the last wishes of the dead are a lot less opaque to us than they are for others, and the living often have a better chance of passing on last messages to our dearly departed. Now, I want you to imagine we had Gideon’s spirit here with us. What would you want to tell him? Especially regarding his own guilt?”

Chandra held the cloth between her hands, and stared down on it, hunched over the chair. “I’d say...I’d say I’m sorry he’s gone. I’d say he made us all proud, but that we wish he hadn’t been carrying his guilt all the way to the end.”

“And do you think Gideon would want that same sentiment for you?”

Chandra looked up at Jenezk, and at that small, sympathetic smile on her face. She felt her lip start to shake, so she bit down on it.

“Do you think he would have wanted you to live a guilt-driven life?”

There they were again. Fucking tears. Chandra didn’t even bother with the cloth this time.

“No. No he wouldn’t have.” She squeezed the cloth, and took several long breaths. Steadying herself.

“But I think...I think what I do still has value.”

“I won’t argue that. Speaking as a citizen of Ravnica, I’m thrilled to have competent mages keeping the city safe. Speaking as your therapist, I’d be even more thrilled to know that my protectors aren’t fueling themselves with guilt, because I’ve seen what that leads to,”

“So what? Change my emotions? My motivations?”

“Well, there are some extra steps in there, but yes, I think that is a fine and, quite frankly, very responsible goal for us to try to tackle.” She left her desk and started back to the chairs. “What do _you_ think of that?”

“I think...yeah, I would like to try.”

“And it probably will take time to think through.” Jenezk offered one of the glasses to Chandra. “You’ve experienced a number of life-changing events in a frankly unfairly small span of time. Whatever amount of time it takes you to process your feelings on them is justified if it helps you keep living your life.”

“And I don’t get paid per visit,” She added. “So you can know that I’m saying that from the heart.”

“Right.” Chandra felt a smile crack her face, and she was laughing. Then coughing on her laughs, then trying to subdue them with the water.

“This is weird.” Chandra said, still half-laughing. “I, uh. I feel like I should ask how _you_ are.”

Jenezk smiled broadly. She looked like the sunbursts Chandra had seen on shields in Regatha and Benalia. “You’re allowed. To a point of course.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “This being a professional environment, after all.”

“Right.”

“I’m well, though. I’m very lucky that my family is mostly in Utvara these days, and far away from the worst of the destruction and rebuilding of recent events. And of course, I get to do the sort of work I love every day.”

“Is it your, uh...what’s the phrase? Dream job?”

“Oh absolutely. I’ve been taking patients for about four years now, and it’s been a welcome change of pace from my apprenticeship. I was _not_ built to work on property contracts all my life.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Chandra stepped around the chair and finally surrendered to gravity, sinking deep into the cushions. “My mother does government work nowadays. I mean, she’s really passionate about what she can accomplish, but I start to fall asleep just listening to some of the stuff she has to deal with.”

Jenezk nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I have the highest respect for anyone who can really throw themselves into bureaucratic work, and I’m perfectly competent at it myself, but I just like being around people too much to drop myself behind a desk long-term, and well...I’ve done nothing but meet people since I started doing therapy work. A dream come true, really.”

“Not a lot of human contact doing uh...law work, right?”

“Well, you basically get your pick between coworkers who prefer to do everything with thrulls as intermediaries, or worse, work as a liaison to the Azorius.”

“Those both sound pretty dull,” Chandra said with a grimace.

“It’s rarely exciting, I’ll put it that way.” Jenezk shook her head slowly. “Speaking of which, how has your own work been proceeding?”

“Uh, interestingly. We had an unusual...encounter, let’s call it, at our current site. Went smoothly; complete success as far as the safety of Ravnica and its citizens goes, but we encountered a few unusual items along the way. Might help us figure out how to wrap this whole job up, might not.”

“I see.” Jenezk nodded politely at the obtuse explanation. “But it’s progress, at least?”

Chandra nodded “We’re moving on to a new site tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll know a lot more by then.”

* * *

“And they couldn’t find _anything_ strange about the eternals we caught?”

“Not a thing.” Tizmugah shrugged. “The frog-gals down at the zonot pulled every eternal open, and they couldn’t find anything different about the talkers from the others. The swarm liches took a look at the growths and supposedly none of the fungi we recovered were capable of reproducing voices. Matter of fact, they determined that most of the fungal enhancements we’ve been seeing on the eternals so far don’t even _do_ anything. Completely decorative, and that’s confirmed by our contacts in the Simic. We even secured the consultation of a thull-specialist with the Orzhov. Ran his instruments all over the bodies and it’s just like Samut says – no organs left in the body to produce speech, after whatever ritual they do to make the eternals...like that.”

“Great.” Chandra sighed and lay back against the side of the Izzet maintenance-boat, trying to ignore the smell from the sewer waters as it passed by beneath her. “So now there’s a new big mystery of talking undead on top of the mystery elite off-plane warriors terrorizing the city.”

“Semi-mystery.” Tizmugah waved a hand at the equipment in their boat, and the boat behind them. “We can assume now these forces aren’t just following orders from the dragon, or from any practitioner of Golgari-necromancy that we’re familiar with, and we can begin testing to see what force _is_ controlling them. If it’s liches, Rakdos puppet-mages, ghosts, or anything we’ve dealt with in the past, we’ve got a device to detect it.”

Samut, was lifting a corner of the tarp, looking over the machines with a doubtful eye. “And if it’s something you haven’t dealt with before?”

“Learn and improve,” Tizmugah said, an oddly cheery note lifting their metallic voice. “First rule of the experiment corps. Well, right after ‘die trying’.”

“Encouraging.” Samut looked downriver. A pale green light shone at the tunnel mouth ahead, with the gentle the intensity of sunlight on a cloudy day. “Tell me again where we’re going.”

“Gnarrhide quarter,” Zamosk called from the water. The troll guide had foregone the use of the boats to swim through the sewer in the way she was accustomed to. “One of the smaller undercity districts, mostly populated with Golgari and guildless laborers. That overseer from the farm job claims he overheard the blue ones mention this humble little swarm enclave while they were jabbering about whatever scheme they’ve got going on.”

“Right.”

“One minute to mission site,” one of the weirds called from the helm, its gurgling voice carrying down the tunnel. “All you meat-people keep your visual organs sharp.”

The all lapsed into silence, watching the glow grow larger and larger, yet barely any more intense. As the boats neared the end of the tunnel Chandra could make out the vague shape of buildings. Windows lit and set into buildings of stone. The occasional movement of a figure through those windows, or flitting between the buildings.

In addition to Chandra, Samut, Tizmugah, Zamosk, and the weirds, Ral Zarek had sent along a small crew of goblin surveyors, a human mage who seemed to be in charge of the new devices, and two viashino, who had already gone ahead to scout out the supposed site of eternal activity on hoverboards.

On the Golgari side they were accompanied by two kraul warriors and a grim-faced half-elf who had introduced himself as Myczil Vod Savo. He hadn’t said much more than that since they set off, and remained quiet on the rear boat as they entered the small underground district.

‘Small’ was a pretty relative way describe the place. The space the tunnel opened up onto was the size of several city blocks, and the individual buildings reached up all the way to the top, curving and melding into one another so that the entire ceiling of the place was just more building, with doorways and windows carved into it. Large spiders and flying citizens of half a dozen different species occupied these upper levels. Every visible surface of the district had at least one large patch of fungus growing on it. A web of bridges threaded above the canal and between every building in sight. Each street and alley and bridge crawled with foot traffic, Mostly elves, humans, and the usual mix of zombie types, though the occasional insectoid, fungoid, or featureless face poked out from the crowd.

“It’s a whole other world down here,” Samut whispered. “Like a tomb that never ends.”

“Grand, isn’t it?” Zamosk leapt up from the water onto the canal walkway, several feet below the street level. The living and the undead on the street barely gave her a glance, most regarding the Izzet boats warily.

The viashino swooped down to hover beside the boats. Their boards crackled with lightning, hissing as they sparked across the surface of the water. Not for the first time, Chandra felt tempted to ask if she could try riding one, though she noted with some caution that one of the pilots was missing the fingers of one on her hands, and the other wore mechanical eye patch that was clearly a replacement, and not an enhancement, of his original eye.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, chief,” one-eye rasped, giving a casual salute to Tizmugah. “At least not as far as we can tell from a sweep of the riverbanks. It’ll be close-quarters flying here and the locals don’t look too keen on us making ourselves at home in the airspace.”

“Do we have clearance to start scanning the buildings?” Tizmugah called back to Myczil.

The half-elf shrugged. “I sent a beetle ahead to my contact but no word yet. If the local authorities know we’re here yet, they will soon.” Myczil nodded at the crowd, a few of whom had already started to wander off down the alleyways, muttering about their new visitors.

“Bah, more waiting.” The human mage, Halzmin, clambered up onto the street level. He was a younger guy, though his hair was already shock-white. “What’s the point in dealing with those infernal law mages to get permits sorted out if we have to hold our hats and beg permission a second time to do our jobs?”

“If you’d like to start waving those contraptions in people’s faces without the blessing of the local leaders, be my guest.” Myczil replied, still watching the people on the street-level. Many were watching the expedition party with clear hostility. “You can tell us all how it goes, if you’ve still got a throat afterwards.”

“Isn’t that why _you’re_ here, pretty-boy?” One of the goblins asked. “Didn’t that queen of yours send you to make things smooth?”

“You’re a fool if you think Vraska’s directions are the final word down here,” Myczil snapped. “Our guild has had half a dozen leadership changes in the past century, and not once has anyone enjoyed the unanimous support of the swarm. And that’s not even beginning to address the number of guildless that live in these districts.”

Halzmin scowled and busied himself with lugging the various scanning devices off the boat and onto the canal walkway. The goblins scurried over the larger contraption in the boat, pressing buttons, pulling switches, and pulling up antennas that pulsed with a silent blue light.

“Might as well start asking around while we wait,” Tizmugah muttered. “Zam’, would you take these two and start posting the notices?”

“Sure.” Zamosk picked a snail off the walkway and popped it into her mouth. “C’mon ladies,” she said through crunching bites. “grab those fliers, would you? Lets go knock on some doors. Spread the word.”

Chandra grabbed a leather parcel full of stacked parchment from the bottom of the boat and slung it over her shoulder. Samut jumped up onto the street and turned around to pull Chandra up after her. They had traded in their own garments for unassuming ravnican street clothing, or what passed for street clothing in the undercity. Chandra was wearing thick gloves to cover up her gauntlets, and a courier’s bag that disguised the regulator strapped to her back.

“Perfect.” Zamosk appraised them with a smirk. “You look a natural pair of vagabonds.” She led them down the largest of the streets, a fungus-lit passageway wide enough for about seven people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. There were a good number of vendors and shops to either side, but these did not extend far into the street, instead disappearing back into the buildings themselves, with maybe a foot of awning or broad doorstep extending out into the mossy cobblestone street. Between shops the buildings were covered in older posters: notices for workers needed, advertisements for Rakdos undercity shows, and fliers that Chandra could not make sense of from either the text or the images on them. “Let me do the talking. You two just look alert and put up those notices anywhere there’s a clear surface. Or a surface with something already on it. Half these buildings are probably held up by layers of posters.”

They passed the next hour working through the streets, alleys, and bridges. Chandra slapped up posters everywhere she could, between doors, on doors, and along the undersides of the bridges.They bore an illustration of the immortals and offered several hundred zinos for any information on their location. Each one grabbed the interest of at least one or two passers-by, but no one volunteered any information.

Or useful information, at least.

“I seen those skeletons,” an old lich remarked as Chandra pressed a poster onto the side of a building that sagged like old cake. “They were all over the daylight city a few days ago, clambering all over. How’d you lose all them?”

“That was months ago,” his companion, a short elf snapped irritably. He shook his head at Chandra. “Don’t mind him. He can’t remember anything right. Went into his undeath with a scoop of his brain missing.”

“Very fine craftsmanship, they had,” The lich mused as his companion steered him away, holding his arm. “Whoever raised them used the strangest blue mold...”

She kept Zamosk and Samut within earshot, though they had barely any more luck. Most of the people they questioned on the street, or who answered the doors on the higher levels of the street, either didn’t know where the eternals might be, or refused to talk outright. The most they could get was confirmation that the eternals had attacked the block several weeks prior.

“Whole gang of the blighted things,” a gorgon offered when Zamosk stopped her on her way out of a tanner’s shop. “Poured out of the ceiling with their blue crocodiles and even a damned dragon. A dragon! And did those fucking wojeks offer to send anyone down here? No. Just arrested and interrogated those of us that went up to the streets to ask for help.” She spat, leaving a wad of sticky-black phlegm on the stone.

“A dragon?” Samut asked, warily. “Where is it now? That can’t have been easy to dispose of.”

The gorgon shrugged. “Wouldn’t know; we didn’t do any disposing. Thing crawled off into one of the tunnels and disappeared. Ain’t heard word about it since. Good damn riddance if you ask me.”

“These dragons of yours,” Zamosk asked as they walked back to the boats. “Well, not _your_ dragons, but in a sense dragons of...wherever you come from, I mean...”

“Is there a question?” Samut asked, a slight edge in her voice.

“Right, It’s just...never saw one back when the invasion was on, but uh...they’re from another world, right? Are they uh, smaller creatures? Maybe horse sized?”

“About ten times as big as the boats we came in on,” Samut replied, nodding toward the water. “I’m guessing that means none of the Golgari search parties found one?”

“Nope.” Zamosk’s mottled-grey skin paled. “Well, that’s good to be forewarned about, I suppose...”

They found the rest of the team still squatting by the boats, the Izzet looking increasingly agitated and impatient, Myczil and his kraul escort simply sitting by the water, eating lunch.

“Anything?” Halzmin growled. He was pacing in a tight circle around his mobile equipment, staying well within the perimeter established by the weird guards and the viashino, who seemed more at ease with the crowd, and were busy doing upkeep on their boards.

“Nothing we didn’t already know,” Samut replied. “Except that our patrols should be on the lookout for a dragon.”

The Izzet exchanged confused looks. Myczil grinned, a gleam of excitement in his eye.

“So now there’s metal monsters _and_ a dragon?”

“Still just metal monsters,” Samut replied icily, “only now there’s one that’s dragon-shaped.”

Myczil exchanged eager looks with his kraul companions. Chandra raised an eyebrow. There was almost something boyish in his excitement.

Tizmugah sighed, a sound like a tea kettle starting to steam. “We should have brought artillery.”

“Dunno, boss.” One of the weirds, the one with twin cleavers of mizzium clutched in its gelatinous fingers, nodded at the buildings. “Might bring down the whole place with something big enough to take down a dragon."

“Not necessary, not necessary,” the human mage grumbled. “We have tools of subtlety here. Blasts are for fools with no sense of efficiency.”

“Some Izzet _you_ are Halzmin,” One of the Viashino scoffed.

“Bah!” The mage, Halzmin, actually shook his fist. “The nephilim take you, Dialki.”

"What's all that mess do, anyways?" Myczil asked, eyes tracing over the equipment on the boat and the street.

“That one’s a seed detector,” Halzmin said, a gleam in his eye. “Can identify any whiff of plant or fungal magic. This one here is a spectral signature isolator. If these bastards are using any spectral energies to control the metal zombies, this’ll pluck them out easy as picking your nose.”

Samut grinned, and dipped her head at the boat. “And _that_ monstrosity?”

“Ah.” Halzmin licked his lips. “That’s an especially fine bit of machinery. Vezmitax?”

One of the goblins hopped up on top of the device in the boat, which now looked like a golden, tubing-laced armadillo with its limbs splayed out.

“Some of our more enterprising magewrights managed to isolate the wavelengths unique to the invader’s spellcasting,” She chirped, tapping the machine proudly with her boot. “If one of them so much as makes a spark within 5 miles we’ll know when and in what direction.”

“Myczil!”

They all turned from the devices to see the old lich Chandra had spoken with earlier ambling toward them, bumping carelessly into other passerbys, his elf companion looking irritable at his side. The lich’s face was lit up with delight.

“Garoz!” Myczil was on his feet, a look of confusion not fully masked by his smile.

“My boy, my boy.” The lich trod past the Izzet and lay a hand on Myczil's shoulder. “It’s been too long. How is your father? Still sullen as ever?”

“Father is...” Myczil glanced at the elf at Garoz’s side, who shook his head. “Father is well. You know how he is, always working.”

Garoz nodded, hand shuffling through the satchel at his hip. “I had a gift for him. For the guild. You’ll give it to him for you, won’t you? And give your mother my best. She always did bring out the best in that old grump.”

“...of course.” Myczil’s smile seemed even more forced. With each second. “What is-?”

Garoz’s withered hand slipped out from the bag, and proffered a dried apple.

“Ah.” Myczil took the fruit with a sad smile. Garoz’s attendant elf rolled his eyes. “Thank you. I’ll give him your warmest regards.”

“Good lad.” Garoz patted Myczil’s cheek. “Hope you can stay a while. The _Angel’s Corpse_ has a wonderful new vintage you won’t find the equal of anywhere else in the undercity. The lich turned, nodded at the rest of the expedition team with an absent smile, and shuffled off, singing loudly in a language Chandra did not recognize.

She edged over toward Myczil. “Who was that?”

“Old friend of my father’s. Retired from guild business a few years before...well, before the new management.” There was a hardness in Myczil’s voice, which caused Chandra to tense up. “I haven’t seen him since I was a boy.” His expression softened a degree. “It’s, ah...it’s good to see he’s safe.”

“And still cheerful,” Chandra remarked. “Though I guess-”

“Come here.”

Samut was staring right at the both of them, her expression calm but her eyes narrowed. “Both of you. Quickly.” She turned and hopped back into the boat without waiting for a response, making a show of helping the goblins with the devices in the boat.

Myczil and Chandra exchanged a look, and followed her down into the boat. When they were all partly concealed by the bank, Samut turned to them.

“Tizmugah,” She said, calmly. “Please do not look at me, but see if you can scan the street and see if anyone is taking particular interest in us.”

The cyclops gave a low rumble of assent and made to pull herself up to the street level.

“What is it?” Myczil hissed, low.

“You’re friend left you a message. Easy now. Slowly.”

Myczil frowned, then looked down at the apple in his hand. It was wrinkled and scarred with signs of insect activity. Brown lines dug deep lines into the already lined skin-

Chandra squinted. There was writing there. Carved into the fruit with trails of rot.

_THEY ARE WATCHING_

_* * *_

“I’m glad we could make this appointment work.”

“Yeah, Uh, thank you for being flexible.”

“Not a problem.” Jenezk smiled. “Life is rarely flexible, so I try to make it a point to be more accommodating to match. Has work been difficult?”

“Challenging.” Chandra rubbed her temple with both hands. She had opted to use the couch today, and to accept a washcloth, soaked in cold water and draped over her eyes. “We’re uh, apparently under a lot of scrutiny right now, but we don’t know exactly by who, or even if our source on that is reliable. Um, it feels like we’re spinning our wheels a little bit these past few days and that we don’t have much to show for it. I know Samut’s getting frustrated, and some of the rest of our team are starting to get snippy with each other. Tizmugah is trying to keep the peace, but Zamosk keeps getting into arguments with this elf guy we brought onboard, and even the weirds are acting a little...well, weird, after just searching with no results.”

“I...see. Have you been trying to relax between shifts? Maybe get some leisure time in?”

“Ah, we’re sort of stuck on-site right now. We’re way off the beaten path. Undercity work. We’ve gone to one of the local pubs a few times together but it’s not really fun for everyone in the group, and like...there’s only so much fun you can have when you’re dead tired from work.”

“Ah. Challenging indeed.” Jenezk cleared her throat. “But since you’ve made it to today’s session, I’m guessing your...work arrangement? Gives you some flexibility in moving around the city?”

“Oh, yeah, although I don’t...well, it’s still exhausting to get around, so...I’ll make exceptions for important appointments, but it makes more sense for us to make use of our temporary place in the undercity otherwise.” She peeled back the washcloth from her eyes. “It’s not even close to the worst place I’ve had to stay in but...it’s cramped, there’s no sunlight, and we’re pretty sure someone is trying to kill us. Or is going to kill someone we don’t want them to. It’s complicated.”

Chandra stared up at the open skylight above her. There were patterns worked into the glass, what looked like a cityscape encircling the Orzhov sun, but the glass itself was unstained, letting in the unfiltered afternoon sunlight.

"I've been meditating when I can. It helps."

"Meditating?" Jenezk's brow lifted. "That sounds useful. What sort of meditation?"

"Um...visualizing stuff, I guess? Nissa - um, my friend Nissa taught me. I try and sit and think about something that will calm me. Take me out of the situation I'm in? It helps a little, but..." Chandra exhaled.

"Meditation helps, but it's okay if it's not solving everything that stresses you."

“yeah, I guess...I still feel a little burned out? Like, I feel like I'm just going through the motions with this job. I mean, I know objectively that it's important work we're doing right now. I accepted the offer because what we’re doing, it...”

“You don’t have to share any details that you’re not comfortable with discussing. Or any details that are supposed to be secret.”

“Thanks.” Chandra grinned. “I mean, I guess it’s not much of a secret that there are still eternals around. The fighting part is always easy, but the searching, the waiting around...we’re basically just going around interrogating people who’ve got better things to do about whether they’ve seen metal zombies in their neighborhood. Our Izzet crew have like, a gajillion zinos worth of scanning and searching equipment and haven’t found anything, and they’ve basically gone over every bare inch of the place twice. Everything we can get at without actually knocking down people’s doors, and if it comes to that, well...I really don’t think I’d want to take part.”

“Perfectly valid.” Jenezk made a small scratch on her parchment. “Nor should you have to feel pressured to.”

“Right, well...I do think it’s important work. We’re keeping people safe. It’s just that a lot of it feels like a continuation of the sort of things I’ve been doing for years, just someplace different, you know?”

“Understandable. Even work we love can feel repetitive at times. Passion only gets us so far.”

Chandra smirked. “Too much excitement just leads back to boredom, huh?”

“Well, sort of.” Jenezk templed her fingers. “More like exhaustion, really. You’ve been through...well, there’s the invasion, for one. But I gather from what Jace has told me that’s not all you’ve done in recent months?”

“Well, no.” Chandra folded her hands over her stomach. “Before that there was a whole ordeal with helping Lili with her demons. I mean that literally. Then we had a battle with Bolas before that, which went...well, as badly as it possibly could have. That was why, um, why one of our team members left.”

Chandra nodded. Something caught in her throat and she had to cough into her shoulder.

“Sorry.”

Jenezk waved her hand. “Absolutely fine. So Nissa left you for a while?”

“Uh yeah, and before that there was...there was a lot of trouble back in my home. Riots and crackdowns and...” Chandra’s fingers clenched. “...there was a man. The guy who killed my dad when I was a kid. I had to, well...face him.”

“Chandra, we can stop and talk about any of these-”

“Then before that, we had to fight...a god? I don’t know what you’d call it. Warped everything into tentacle monsters. That actually wasn’t so bad, except for the temporary insanity.”

Jenezk just bit her lip and nodded.

“And then right before that we were fighting other gods. But not, like, unrelated gods. They came in a set of three. Although I guess we also fought a different set of gods when we went after Bolas the first time. Then _he_ killed those gods and brought them to Ravnica.”

There was a brief silence. Jenezk made a few more marks on her pad.

“Chandra,” She said at last, tapping her quill against the arm of her chair. “Would you agree that this is an unusually high number of crises for any one person to have to experience, let alone be responsible for solving, let alone being as relatively young as you are and letting alone that so many of these events appear to have occurred in sequence, with little time to rest in-between?”

“...yeah, that’s fair.”

“And that that might have had a negative effect on your mental health?”

“I guess? Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“There’s a lot of reasons you might be here. We’ve discussed talking through your emotions and motivations for one, and of course just having this dialogue is a perfectly fine reason to come.” Jenezk lay her quill across her pad. “However, the more I hear about your line of work, the more I worry. Don’t you worry about yourself ever?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been throwing myself into one danger after the other. It’s what Gideon would have done. I just feel...I feel like _someone_ should be doing what he was doing. Out in the world. Sacrificing themselves for others.”

“What do you think _he_ would have wanted for you?”

Chandra licked her lips. She thought of Gideon watching over her shoulder as they faced down the titans. Of him holding her on Kaladesh.

“He would have wanted me to be careful. To take care of myself.”

“You told me before that you wish Gideon hadn’t been so self-sacrificing.” Jenezk leaned forward. “Don’t be so quick to saddle yourself with what you wouldn’t want for the people you love. It’s almost a certainty that they wouldn’t want such things for you.”

Chandra shrugged again, and put the washcloth back over her face. It was easier not looking at anything sometimes.

Jenezk let her be. It was a pleasant silence; calm and complete, which was something Chandra had rarely encountered on Ravnica.

“Someone’s got to save the world,” Chandra said at last. “I don’t think I’m the only one who can, but...I mean, I think I’ve helped so far.”

“Then save the world,” Jenezk replied. “As a resident of the world, I have no problem with that, but you should be mindful of the stress that can cause, and how that can affect the way you think. You need to be mindful of how you take care of that stress, or you’ll find it controlling your life.”

“Controlling how?”

“Any number of ways. We won’t be discussing any diagnoses in this session, but suffice it to say our minds are not are friends sometimes. Traumatic experiences can cause us to only think in negatives, whether it’s about ourselves or others. They can fetter our ability to manage our emotions, especially if we’re not mindful about how it might be affecting us. It can make us sensitive to to things that remind us of trauma, and of course sometimes there _are_ stressors best avoided, but often enough we also push away positive forces in our lives along with the negative.”

Jenezk paused and sighed, drawing in a breath.

“That said, you very well may not be affected by any of these. But I would be remiss if I didn’t keep us both aware of the possibility.”

“That...makes sense, I guess.” Chandra rubbed her fingers. “One of my friends, an old coworker; we did a lot of talking after the war. He’d lost a lot of important people even before then and he helped me realize that...that all the self-blame wasn’t doing any good. That it was better to focus on the helping I could do than on the hurt I felt.”

Jenezk nodded. “Well, I can tell you he wasn’t lying.”

“Oh, no, he is a lion.”

“...what?”

“He’s-oh, wait sorry.” Chandra flushed. “You said ‘lying,’ didn’t you?”

“...I did.”

“Right.”

Jenezk nodded, then shook her head. “In any case, there’s still dangers in working nonstop even if you do have a positive outlook about it. We’re not creatures of infinite capacity. That goes for our emotions as much as it goes for physical stamina, or magical power. It’s good not to hyperfocus on the hurt, but we have to acknowledge it and understand how the hurt affects us to recover from it.”

“Like, what we might have done when we were feeling hurt?”

“Among other things.”

Chandra nodded, lacing and unlacing her fingers. Jenezk let her alone with her thoughts. Chandra considered the things she’d done in those few gods-forsaken days after Gideon had died. The waiting around uselessly. The anger and the hollowness of seeking vengeance. The distance between herself and the others.

A soft knock at the door broke the silence. Jenezk frowned, rose from her chair, and strode over to open it.

“I’m with a patient, Val.”

“Apologies mistress,” the thrull secretary muttered. It sniffed at the doorway, eyeless mask turning back and forth. There is a visitor outside demanding Miss Nalaar’s presence. Very insistent. Something about candles.”

Chandra leapt up from the couch. ‘Candles’ was the code she and Samut had decided on when discussing the Eternal search out in the open.

“Sorry Jen’” Chandra rolled up the washcloth and placed it in a bucket by the couch. “That’ll be work.”

Jenezk looked slightly peeved, but smiled and nodded all the same.

“Next session’s in two days; good luck until then.”

* * *

Chandra found Samut in the lobby, pacing and shooting glares at the attendants, who were scowling at her from the corners. They started out of the building immediately.

“What’s happened?”

“Halzmin is dead. And Kezzitex, that one quiet goblin on the survey crew. One of Myc’s Kraul. Dialki’s badly injured. Might lose an arm.”

Chandra felt her gut go cold. “The eternals?”

“We don’t know.” They stepped out onto the street and made a beeline toward Jace’s apartment, shouldering through the foot traffic. “We woke up to find Halzmin dead in the boats. Throat cut in...well, not in the night, as far as we can tell, but cut all the same. The goblin was dead too, and one of his crew-mates was waving a knife around, hollering about how Kezzitex killed Halzmin. Domazem, or something like that. Vezmitax was interrogating him in the quarters when I left.”

“And the others?”

“Accidents, supposedly, all while on patrol, all right before we found Halzmin. Dialki's board just stopped working, mid-patrol and crashed. The Kraul we found in a dozen pieces in a back room of a tavern. The barkeep alerted us right after Halzmin died, but he must have been back there at least a day, based on....” Samut trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “...Well, in any case, he’s dead.”

Chandra’s jaw clenched. “Any sign of eternal magic?”

“None. That big machine in the boat’s kept quiet since you left. Tiz’ said that they’d gotten some sort of clues from the smaller devices, but I didn’t have time to ask what.”

“Reinforcements?”

Samut shook her head. “I don’t know. Tizmugah sent out a distress signal before I left, but who knows how long it will take to gather forces.”

“Damn!” Chandra sped the final few steps to Jace’s building and shouldered the door open. She stomped up the stairs. “Damn!”

“There was almost nothing you could have done,” Samut said, evenly. “Whoever this was caught us all napping.” She pulled out a key at the next landing and they strode into their temporary/ temporarily empty home.

The living space was cramped with books, chairs, and other oddities, but large and winding in its layout. Not the sort of setup Chandra much enjoyed, but it seemed to work well enough for Jace.

Not that they were there for the décor.

The transporter pad stood along the wall of a side room deep in the apartment, unremarkable except that the door was conspicuously reinforced with solid steel. The transporter itself was a gap of open space along a wall otherwise stacked high with books. It looked like the inside of a hollowed-out metal can, with a single button along the side for each of the locations Jace had access to. One pale green, one purple, and one a dark, muddy green. Chandra punched the muddy button with her thumb before standing back and waiting, arms folded.

“You’re right,” she said, after a moment. “Still, I wish I had been down there to help.”

Samut shrugged. “Your sessions here seem to help you down there. You’ve been less distracted this past week. Less agitated.”

Chandra nodded. The transporter was whirring louder by small degrees, like a fan starting to spin. The button she’d pressed glowed with a murky light.

“I…haven’t asked how you’ve been lately,” Chandra glanced over at Samut. “You’ve been pressing yourself hard, too.”

Samut shrugged. “That’s just life, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes. I don’t think that life is always healthy for us, though. Sometimes we need a break from it.”

Samut smirked. “A break.” she tapped a finger against the khopesh at her hip. “This is all I know. This is all I was raised to know. I didn’t expect to be alive past the age I am now for most my life and when I finally saw that upbringing for false there was an entirely new struggle consuming my world. I don’t ever know that I will ever be comfortable at rest.”

“I think you deserve to be,” Chandra blurted out. She pursed her lips. “That is, I admire you as a fighter. As someone who’s fought for others as fiercely as you have. But I also care about you as a friend. If you ever want to...I don’t know, talk about how you feel…?” She trailed off. The question felt clumsy. Foolish.

The transporter sang, a pleasant note filling the room. Both of them faced the transporter.

“Well.” Samut said, flatly.

“Right.” Chandra stepped into the machine, bracing herself.

“Chandra.” Samut looked her in the eye. Her face was set and hard, as it always looked before a fight. She nodded at Chandra. “Let’s talk. Once we get this sorted out.”

Chandra grinned back and the knot in her stomach eased up a little.

Then the transporter pulled her away

The Izzet teleporters were quick and efficient, but the brief second it took to teleport from one place to the next felt like getting squeezed into a paste and pushed through a brick wall. Jace said you got used to it after a while, but Chandra hoped she wouldn’t ever need to use one that many times.

An uncomfortable way to travel, but less exhausting than planeswalking, and Chandra preferred to go into a fight with all the energy she could reserve ahead of time.

A second later she stepped onto a tunnel deep in the undercity, with still, silent zombie guards standing against both walls in a row. The second transporter was sunk into a dead-end wall on one end of the tunnel, and manned by a single Izzet goblin, armed with a small flamethrower despite (or perhaps because of) the zombies set to guard this particular location. He gave Chandra a small nod and tipped his hat. She nodded back and, keeping her eyes on the transporter, dropped two golden coins into the goblin’s hand.

“One more coming.” Chandra started jogging down the corridor. Samut, came out of the teleporter at a sprint, and met her halfway down the tunnel. “Should we take a boat or just run?”

“Tizmugah pulled everyone back to the canal, so hopefully they aren’t in any immediate danger, but the quicker the better.” They walked past the end of the tunnel onto the underground docks. “Hopefully the Golgari have something that can navigate these rivers faster than-”

The rush of activity out on the docks drove whatever Samut had been about to say out of her mind.

“...guess they gathered forces pretty quickly.”

Samut nodded, and they descended to the water level. Kraul and elves were ordering platoons of zombies onto boats helmed by mages in blue and red. About four broad, square boats, built entirely for transportation by the look of them, floated in the sewer harbor. Two smaller boats with armadillo-machines like the one they’d driven into Gnarrhide district three days ago flanked these larger vessels, humming loudly.

“Samut! Chandra!” Vraska stood on the pier, waving them down. She had on her captain’s coat, with a few fungal flourishes along her waist and shoulders, like epaulets. An older Goblin in magewright's robes stood at her side, and introduced herself as Crixizmix.

“Or ‘Crix,’ Since time is of the essence,” the old goblin added, adjusting the bulky power pack on her shoulders. “These two are the...visitors?”

Vraska nodded. “We’ve gathered what forces we could assemble discreetly on such short notice,” She explained the Chandra and Samut. “We want to evacuate as many citizens as we can to safety without raising too much of an alarm. No arrests or forced removal,” she added with a raised brow. “I want the undercity citizens protected more than I want whoever is responsible rooted out.”

“Right.” Samut glanced at the boats. Little trails of lightning sparked along her sandals. “How long ‘til they’re ready? How fast will these boats go? I don’t like the idea of waiting around.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Crix patted the side of the nearest boat. “These are our latest and greatest cruisers; they’ll have you on-site in less than half an hour. We’ll be set as soon as the last transports arrive and pass deployment inspection.”

Even as she spoke, several more boats came into the harbor, cutting a brisk wave behind them. No one made a move to board them, and they simply floated behind the formation, empty except for their crews.

“For the evacuation.” Vraska explained.

“That’s my cue.” Crix lifted suddenly into the air, jets of flame, shooting from her heels. Chandra realized with a start that the goblin mage’s legs were made of Mizzium.

“Neat trick,” Chandra said, a little jealous as she watched the old goblin fly toward the end of the dock.

Vraska cleared her throat. “Chandra, a word?”

She nodded to a chamber a level up, and turned to mount the stair leading to the entrance. Chandra exchanged a look with Samut.

“Be back, I guess.”

The room was glass on three sides, allowing a commanding view of the port. It was furnished with the oddest collection of fungi Chandra had seen yet, though the furniture could have belonged to a consulate bureaucrat. Weird, but the most arresting detail was…

“Jace!”

“Chandra.” Jace looked tired, and Chandra had definitely just caught him mid-pace. He smiled and they embraced. When he pulled away, there was a frown on his face.

“What’s going on?” Chandra looked from Jace to Vraska, who was closing the door behind her.

“The port chief has given me use of his private office for this operation. No one will hear us in here.” Vraska made a gesture, and the fungus lining the windows vented steam, obscuring the view to the outside. “And no-one will see us.”

“Uh, sure...is this an assassination?” The joke landed about as well as Chandra expected it to. Jace bit his lip and Vraska offered a weak smile as she sat behind the desk.

“It’s... _about_ an assassination. Do you want a seat?”

“I’ll stand. And I’m...not sure I’m comfortable with more wet work like that.” Chandra crossed her arms. “Actually, let me take that back, I’m definitely not interested. Once was enough.”

“Oh, it’s not that, I...” Vraska trailed off. “It’s about Baan. It’s about something I should have told you a long time ago. About something I never should have asked of you.”

Chandra glanced at Jace, who nodded. It was his ‘it’s okay’ nod, which settled the unease in Chandra’s gut a bit.

“Okay. What about Baan?”

“You didn’t kill him.”

Vraska had the courtesy to let Chandra process the statement in silence.

A dozen images flashed through her mind. Baan sabotaging the Hope of Ghirapur. Baan smirking his insufferable little vedalken smirk down at her from atop the immortal sun while the city suffered invasion around them. Baan falling backwards into an air-singing flow of molten rock, his blue skin curling to black ash.

“I was there, Vraska. Are you trying to tell me he-”

Vraska shook her head. “It was me. I found him here on Ravnica, and he...I let him live because I let myself believe I could not rule my guild without outside help. I made a deal with him. His life in exchange for his counsel. I...I tricked you on Regatha. We did. Baan and I. He sacrificed his own hand to make you think he was dead.”

Chandra felt a smile cross her face. This had to be a joke. “So what? he’s wearing a cape of mushrooms now and whispering in your ear? What sort of-”

“He’s dead, Chandra.”

Jace spoke this time, his eyes locked on Chandra. He looked guilty. As guilty as Chandra had ever seen him look.

“Right. I killed him”

“He died after Regatha,” Vraska said, shaking her head. Her tendrils where twitching, like snakes shying away from a boot. “And by whose hand I still do not know. Throat slit. Likely he never even knew he’d been killed.”

Chandra looked Vraska in the face. The gorgon’s golden eyes wavered, but held her gaze.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I should never have deceived you in the first place. Because you’ve been a good friend to Jace, and to me. Because I did something wrong, and this is the very least I can do to make amends.”

Vraska paused. Her tendrils slowed and lay back against her head.

“Because you are about to risk your life for my guild and I owe you honesty, among other things, for that kindness.”

Chandra glanced back at Jace. “You knew?”

He nodded. “I knew. I have no excuses.”

“Did Jenezk say you should tell me?” Chandra grimaced. “Is that what this is? Part of your healing process?”

Vraska almost looked affronted. “Do you think I would trust something like this to an Orzhov, no matter how benign? No. This is...” Her face relaxed, and she sighed. “This is me trying not to become what I hate. This is me trying to not keep secrets and make backroom deals to rule my guild. This is exactly as selfish an action as you probably think it is, but I think...I _hope_ it’s the right thing to do.”

“Good for you.” Chandra turned on her heels and made for the door. She could her Vraska’s chair clatter back, and caught a flash of blue as Jace took a step toward her.

“Don’t worry about the job,” Chandra said, not looking at either of them, her hand wrapped tight on the doorknob. “I’m not going to abandon this half-done.”

“It’s not just about the job, Chandra.” Jace said. “You’re my friend. One of my closest friends.”

“...thank you.” Chandra turned, just enough to look at Jace. The heat of anger cooled a degree, though her fingers had still sank into the super-heated metal of the door handle. “I appreciate that you told me. I really do. But I think we all know the apology is just the start of the healing, don’t we?”

Neither of them said anything.

“I need some time. I may need a lot of time. I’d appreciate it if you don’t come find me when this is over.”

“Of course.” Jace and Vraska said it almost simultaneously. Chandra was glad she was turned away so they couldn’t see a slight smirk twist her lips, in spite of the angry heat in her chest.

“Thank you. And...give the door handle a few seconds before you try to leave, ok?”

* * *

The boats moved as swiftly as Crix had promised, navigating the dark passages and tight turns of the sewer rivers with ease.

“Guess that old lich was onto something,” Chandra shouted over the roar of the engines.

“Guess so,” Samut returned. They stood together at the prow of a rear transport, watching the sights of the undercity whip past. “Though, if it _is_ the eternals, how did the machines not detect them. Wasn’t that their entire purpose? And if they were watching us, how did he know?”

“Necromancer.” Chandra shrugged. “Maybe they can tell.”

Samut shook her head. “Watching us the whole time. We’ve been down there for days.”

Chandra nodded, grim, and looked over the devices mounted to the front of the gunships. They’d started pinging to signal the detection of eternal magic ten minutes into the trip, and the alarms noises had only gotten louder as they made the approach.

“We get people to safety first, then we’ll figure all that out.”

“Right.” Samut put her knee up on the prow. Her fingers were tapping at her waist. She looked about as impatient as Chandra felt. “What did Vraska have to say? Anything I should know?”

Chandra shook her head. “Nothing to do with the job. Ask me that again before we get to Gnarrhide, though. If there’s eternals on the move when we get back I’d like to be in a pissed off mood when I have to blast them.”

Samut’s response was droned out by a sudden shrill burst of sound from both of the probe boats. Every single light on the eternal-magic-detectors strobed with neon violence.

“What in-” Chandra looked ahead, just as the lead boats navigated a sharp turn in the tunnel. The other rescue workers had noticed the machine’s alert as well. The turn leveled out into a wide expanse of sewer. Something in the air made Chandra’s neck tingle.

“Mages!” Samut bellowed over the machines, pointing downriver. The sewer river was wide here, and maintenance platforms spanned either side. Blue-metal skeletons of humans, naga, and jackals loomed all along them, well concealed by the shadows to the eye of anyone who wasn’t looking for them. Various spells began forming in their hands.

The Golgari archers reacted swiftly, unleashing bolts with astonishing precision, considering the cramped quarters of the boats and the high speed at which they were traveling.

One of the Naga spread their arms and a wall of force spread out to the right, deflecting the arrows there. To the left, the bolts found targets, but the eternals were too durable for a single arrow to fell, and only one, struck in half a dozen places, actually slumped into the waters.

The remaining eternals launched their spells. Bolts of black fire, elemental snakes, and violent waves of sewer water shot towards the boats. The Izzet mages aboard the scanner ships deflected the brunt of these spells with space-warping counter-magic, but a few spells slipped through their guard and struck one the lead boat, knocking it against the vessel behind it, sending both careening off course. More spells peppered the armored hull, and swept across the rescue crews on board. Undead and kraul alike perished with chitters and moans.

“Go!” Samut punched Chandra in the shoulder, and leapt off the side of the boat. “Go!” She landed on the closest scanner ship and leapt again, this time right at the eternals.

Chandra followed a half-second behind. She jumped as well, landing unsteadily on the scanner ship, which pitched beneath her. She staggered forward across its prow and jumped again, this time visualizing Crix’s trick with her legs. Twin jets of flame ignited inches from the soles of Chandra’s boots, and she was flung straight at a snake eternals. The undead mage was so focused on the lead boats that it only managed a surprised hiss before Chandra’s weight and heat demolished it utterly.

Then she was running alongside Samut, barreling their way through eternals with fire and sword. The wayward boats were able to correct course, though the boats behind had to slow down to avoid ramming them from behind. The lead boat pulled ahead at full-steam, leaving the rest in its wake.

“Nice!” Chandra shouted as they knocked the last eternal on their side to pieces. “So much for that sneak-”

The water in front of the lead boat exploded into a filthy spray. A massive, blue-metal maw surged up from beneath the sewage and clamped down on the hull, ripping it to shreds.

“Dragon!” Samut’s scream was almost loud enough to carry through the frenzy of action. “Dragon!”

The archers and mages on the boats behind the lead were already preoccupied with fending off the remaining mages, despite the cries and shouts from the others on board. The dragon’s jaws opened and snapped shut again, crushing the rest of the lead boat. The surviving crew and passengers dove into the water, fleeing the thrashing eternal dragon as quickly as they could.

Chandra exchanged a quick nod with Samut, and they sprang apart, Samut skipping from the floor to wall, then sprinting like a trail of lightning across the curved tunnel ceiling. Chandra released another blast of flame beneath her feet, and arced toward the dragon.

The dragon lifted its maw from the water, much faster than Chandra would have predicted something so large could move, and opened wide to swallow her.

Samut, as expected, was faster still, and jumped from ceiling to blue-metal snout, slamming the Dragon’s jaw shut. Before it could recover from the hit she dashed along its back and, swinging with both of her khopesh, severed a wing. Chandra landed right behind her, and let loose a burst of flame along its opposite flank.

Off-balance, the dragon flopped back into the water, landing gracelessly on its side. It began to crane its head around to snap at Samut, and as it did so, the remaining boats ran into it at reduced speed; not fast enough to hurt the passengers, but bringing them to an abrupt stop, and stunning the dragon. Kraul and undead leapt from the boats to swarm the dragon’s body, and devkarin hunters drew bladed bows to cut at the creature’s limbs.

“Go! Go!” The new lead boat driver was gesturing frantically at Chandra and Samut. “We’ve got this, go!”

Chandra hesitated half a step, but Samut pulled her along. They leapt off the Dragon’s flank to opposite sides of the river, and barreled forward.

* * *

Samut and Chandra burst back into the district canal, along the walkways, still grappling with enemies. There had been eternal warriors all along the tunnel, crawling out of the sewage to intercept them every hundred yards or so. By the time they reached the end of the tunnel they were both pure momentum and adrenaline, and the undead more or less shattered on contact.

The expedition boats were in ruins. One was mostly sunk, only a small corner sticking out above the water. The other was overturned, with the Izzet half of the expedition party huddled atop it. Both were surrounded by eternals. Jabbing spears. Casting spells. The weirds were desperately forcing them back with electrified pikes of mizzium. Tizmugah was bleeding from a dozen small wounds, struggling to maintain barriers of solid-air magic on either side of the river. The streets themselves were chaos. Small groups of eternal warriors menaced pockets of undercity citizens, some of whom appeared to have armed themselves with chairs, bricks, pipes, and anything else in reach.

Chandra threw her arms behind her back and released a jet of flame. She flew from the canal walkway to the street level, ramming through the mages perched there shoulder-first. Metal-hard limbs battered her legs and face, but her heat ensured that her body did more damage to them than theirs to her.

Chandra let her fire subside as she smashed through the last mage, and slid to a crouch on the edge of the street. Between heartbeats, she registered that one of the buildings at the far end of the canal had smoke pouring out from its lower levels.

Then, spinning around, she cast a stream of fire along the canal walkway below, setting the spear-wielding eternals alight. The force of the stream bowled half of them over, and the weirds rushed them, taking advantage of their distraction to dismember the still-standing eternals with their mizzium blades. The eternals grasped feebly at the weirds with glowing-hot hands, but only managed to make steam on contact with their liquid limbs.

Across the canal Samut had dispatched the other eternals on the walkway. Behind her, the streets were almost empty, occupied only by the undercity denizens who had joined the fight against the eternals in small scuffles, and those too wounded or infirm to evacuate to the buildings. Chandra flashed a weary thumbs-up.

“Bombs!” Tizmugah shouted, letting the barrier around the upturned boat fall. “They’ve planted bombs! We must evacuate!”

“Who? Where?” Chandra leapt down onto the walkway.

“The talking skeletons,” one of the weirds offered, slamming the blunt end of its cleaver into an eternal’s chest. “Ringleaders, no doubt.”

“Ghosts,” another weird muttered in a gravelly voice, spitting the word out like a curse. “Or ghost magic. Possessing the bodies this whole time, I’d wager.”

Chandra looked from one weird to the other. “Ghosts?”

“All clear on that side.” Samut skipped across the water to join them. “We can do a scan of the buildings but the people seem to have it under control. It’s strange...” Samut shook her head. “Whatever. What’s this about bombs?”

“And ghosts,” Chandra added, casting a nervous look at the spectral scanners the weirds had strapped to their backs.

“The little shit tampered with the machines,” One of the weirds growled. “That goblin what cut Halzmin’s throat open. That’s why we couldn’t detect the damned things. Halzmin had just gotten them fixed back up when he died.”

Samut raised an eyebrow. “So it _was_ the goblin. How do we know?”

“He escaped.” Tizmugah ambled onshore. “Sprang right back to life when the eternals called to him.” They leveled their gauntlet up onto the street level and a bolt of lightning forked out from the fingers, knocking two charging bull-headed eternals to the cobblestones. “Right after telling us about the bombs.”

“Again, what bombs?” Samut asked.

Tizmugah pointed toward the smoking building on the far end of the cavern. The bottom had collapsed entirely, and partially fallen into the canal. Kraul and spiders up on the ceiling were scrambling to vent the smoke through shafts in the buildings. “Somewhere in the buildings. He said that if we followed him or detained him further they’d blow up the whole district. When I didn’t believe him, _tha_ _t_ happened.”

“And the eternals _called_ to him?”

“Two of them did. Two that spoke.” Zamosk trudged over from the direction of the smoking building. “We’ve gotten out as many as we can without dousing the flames. The locals are working on diverting water now.” She stopped and rubbed her forehead; every inch of her mottled skin and mossy clothes was covered in smoke stains. “I’m glad you made it back. We’ve got to go after the ringleaders; they ran off with the goblin into the sewers when the locals started fighting back.”

“Evacuation first,” Samut said with a grimace. “There’s boats coming to get people out.”

“Right.” Zamosk scanned the streets, where the last of the eternals were being subdued and slain. “Myc won’t like waiting. He’s spitting mad right now; I had to keep him from running off after them once they blew the housing. Maybe we-”

“We have more bombs to worry about,” Tizmugah interrupted, their tinny voice getting louder and more urgent. “Under the buildings. If there’s boats coming we need everyone out here now. As orderly as we can manage.”

“Right.” Chandra looked around at the skirmishes dying down in the streets. “Do we have like, some kind of loudspeaker or…?”

“You have me.” Tizmugah whistled, and the two goblins not tending to the wounded viashino sprang into action, popping open compartments on the underside of the overturned boat and pulling out cables. One produced a large black box with a steel mesh secured over one side. “Leave the alarm to us. You three go and comb the streets. Get Myc to help. Warn as many people as you can.”

“Right.” Chandra nodded across the canal. “Me and Samut can each take a side. Should I be looking out for ghosts, or…?”

Zamosk shook her had. “The ghosts are gone. I’ll go with you and explain; I’ve got to find Myc, anyways.”

“Sure, but Samut...”

“Fill me in later.” Samut tucked her Khopesh and ran back across the water, shouting for people to prepare to leave.

* * *

They started with the streets. Relatively small though it was, Gnarrhide was still way too big for three people to raise a proper alarm on short notice. Thankfully, the Golgari and guildless who had been fighting the eternals took up the call to evacuation with a resigned urgency as soon as Chandra and Zamosk alerted them, spreading out to the upper walkways and dark alleyways, and directing their neighbors toward the canal.

For their part, Chandra and Zamosk picked a building and started shouting door to door, knocking on each until the occupant came out and they could direct them to the water. Most on the upper levels heard the commotion and warnings from below, and took their own initiative to leave. When Tizmugah’s voice finally poured through the streets, even more came out from their homes.

_PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT HOSTILE FORCES HAVE PLANTED EXPLOSIVES THROUGHOUT THE DISTRICT. ALL CITIZENS ARE URGED TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE CANAL FOR URGENT EVACUATION._

The message repeated once again, and then Tizmugah broadcast the message in a language Chandra did not recognize, which seemed to encourage several of the kraul and other insectile citizens to evacuate their homes.

“So ghosts,” Chandra shouted through the evacuation warning as they mounted a staircase on the outside of the building, making their way to the next landing. “How do they factor in?”

“Everyone we found dead was using the spectral scanners,” Zamosk yelled back. She pressed to one side to let a fleeing elf couple pass. “Every single one of them had reported back positive readings before they were killed. Every single one was found with a destroyed scanner.”

“Then how would you know about the ghosts?”

Zamosk jerked her head down the street toward the canal “All the devices the spark-guilders brought go through Tiz’s own scanners. Exactly for situations like this, I guess. As soon as we started asking the locals questions about ghosts, that’s when the eternals showed up.”

“Where the hell were they hiding? Were they squatting in someone’s house?”

“The canal. Right under our hulls the whole time. A whole squadron climbed right out, blasted the boats and started attacking everything in sight to cover the ringleaders escape.”

And the ringleaders were…?

“Just two eternals, same as the two we pinched at the farm. They talked. Shouted to each other. Shouted at our rogue goblins about the bombs. One of them had a switch that made them go off, and I guess could make others go off at any time.” Zamosk looked down at the landing uneasily. “Let’s hurry.”

“Right.” Chandra scanned the doors visible from the railing. Most of them hung open, and most of the foot traffic was headed for the water. Across the way she saw one door open a crack, then slam shut again, while others rushed past it.

She swore and ran up a level, where a bridge connected the wide balconies that ran around the structures. She pounded on the door with the back of her hand, ignoring a few curious looks from those fleeing.

The door creaked open, and Chandra took a tentative step into the room beyond. It was dimly lit by two grimy glass lamps suspended from the ceiling with chains, and an old harpy huddled in the corner, wings spread protectively over a clutch of children; a mix of elves, humans, and goblin.

“Stay away!” The harpy shrilled. “We don’t want any trouble!”

“I’m here to help,” Chandra said. “The district is in danger. You need to evacuate.”

She took a step forward, and the children cowered further behind the Harpy.

“I won’t let you hurt them,” The harpy said, clearly straining to put some menace into his croaky voice.

Chandra held her hands up, and backed away. She realized belatedly that she had the lamps to her back, and they saw her as a silhouette from the doorway. With her cloak and regulator equipment, she must look frightening.

She knelt and let a small fire spark in her palm to light her face.

“I mean no harm.” She tried a smile, and the goblin-child poked her face out from behind the harpy’s wing to examine the flame. “There are dangerous people nearby. They’ve laid explosives in the buildings, and we need to get everyone to safety.”

The harpy clicked his beak, eyes uncertain.

The other children poked their heads out as well, curious about the fire in Chandra’s hands.

A whistle pierced the air, like a kettle on full boil. One of the children ran to the door and stuck their head out, peering toward the canal.

“It’s true, da! Izzet tubs!”

The old harpy ambled over to the doorway, shouldering past Chandra. She scowled and followed after him, the other children scampered after the first one, and began to exclaim.

Sure enough, the remaining Izzet transports were filling the canal, two abreast. Already elves, insects, gorgons, humans, and all manner of undercity dwellers were filling the canal banks.

“Good enough?” Chandra sighed.

The harpy cast a suspicious look over his shoulder, but sent the children to gather a few pieces of food, and followed them to the boats. Chandra stayed a few steps behind them, making sure the old bird didn’t pass out, huffing and puffing as he was.

Zamosk met her on the street level, escorting a large, elderly bug-thing that ambled along with a walking stick the size of a sapling.

“Myc’s still not answering.” She tapped the communicator dangling among the bones strung around her neck.

Chandra glanced around the crowd. “There’s a lot of places he could be.”

“Mm.” Zamosk nodded, but there was a distinct look of worry on her face.

The weirds were directing queues of people along the water, forming some into lines that led down the steps to the canal walkway, lowering others straight into the arms of Golgari and Izzet rescue workers. Samut and the goblin crew were attempting to do the same on the other side, though there was lots of jostling and shoving on the far bank. Chandra noted that there were more boats than they’d left with, and asked one of the weirds about it.

“Your brush with the dragon was loud enough we heard it here. Guess they heard it back at port too and thought they ought to put a few extra boats into making sure everyone gets out safe.”

“Right. Thanks, um...” She paused, not knowing how to address the very creature who she’d been working with for almost two weeks.

“Weird A,” The weird replied. And that’s P and K over there.” It nodded over at the other elementals. “You can remember ‘A’ since I’m the adorable one.”

“Uh, right.”

“Our creator gave us numbers when he made us, but we prefer letters, so...”

“Oh. Well, good for you guys, then. That’s-” Chandra stopped short. Vraska was leaping from one of the new boat onto the walkway across the canal. She started barking orders, crisp and sharp, and the crowd fell into neater, if not exactly neat, columns.

Chandra felt a small spark flit in her breast for just a second, then quelled it, breathing deep.

“It’s not about you,” she whispered to herself under her breath. “Of course she’d come to see to her own people.”

“Chandra!”

Samut was crossing the boats, waving Chandra down.

“What’s happened?”

“Myczil’s gone.” She waved a hand at the boats, where the remaining kraul from their expedition team sat, chittering up at Tizmugah. “His bodyguard says he went off after the eternals...apparently they found Garoz's body in the rubble. The old lich probably never knew what hit him.”

“Damn.” Chandra looked up and down the empty streets. “They said they’d blow this place if we followed, didn’t they?”

“Said they would,” Zamosk muttered darkly. “And that’s assuming they don’t just kill him.”

“He’s a former guildmaster’s son, I’m sure he’s got some tricks to keep himself safe.” Weird A made a strange, high-pitched sound, like a cross between a laugh and a steam whistle. “Sweet you’re so worried after him, though.”

“I’m worried about bombs bringing the whole district down on our heads,” Zamosk hissed.

“I heard something about bombs?”

Chandra took a step back in surprise as Crix descended onto the street between them, her feet sizzling in the moist moss between the cobblestones. She nodded at each of them. “Ladies. Are we in danger?”

“The people here may be if we don’t evacuate soon,” Samut said, trying to keep her voice low. Chandra pulled closer to her fellow planeswalker to accommodate. Every mention of ‘bomb’ increased the agitation of the crowd noticeably. “The explosives are under the buildings, supposedly. Tizmugah thinks they used the smaller sewage tunnels leading into the canals to plant them.”

“Can they _do_ that?” Weird A broke in. “Unless the schematics we have of the place are completely off, there shouldn’t be any pipes leading into these building wider than a foot.”

“Yes.” Samut looked down the alleyway. Chandra watched her eyes shift, looking over each body. “If they had one of Rhonas’ eternalized viziers among them, they could have easily controlled any number of the creatures that dwell in the sewers and had them carry bombs into the buildings themselves.

“Krokt.” Crix swore. “And the detectors we sent?”

“Not worth a damn thing, ma’am,” Weird A said. “Didn’t make a peep for two days, then we started getting picked off and then they destroyed the boat before it could do any good.”

“Sabotaged.” Zamosk said. “By one of your lot, it seems.”

Crix pursed her lips. “Do you mean by a goblin or by an Izzet?”

“Both.” Zamosk frowned. “Meaning no insinuation of a treacherous nature to either.”

“Of course,” Crix returned, coolly.

Samut coughed. “Look, this is an important conversation, but if Myczil catches up with those eternals and they blow the whole district, it will be a completely pointless one.”

“Right.” Chandra threw a look over her shoulder. “Which way?”

“I can show you which way those metal creeps ran off,” Weird A said. It pointed down an alley and ambled off, Chandra followed, along with Samut, Zamosk, and Crix.

They alley ended in a ditch and a stack of open pipes, each about as wide around as Chandra was tall.

“Middle pipe,” Weird A said. “Chased them down here with Myc and one of his bug-buddies. Then they brandished the detonator at us, and we had to hold Myc back from jumping in after them. He was scalding mad though. Like a magewright who just got their funding cut.”

“Well let’s go makes sure he doesn’t get himself killed.” Crix perched on the lip of the central pipe and tapped it with a gloved hand. “Or get all of us killed, as the case may be.”

* * *

The dim light of the undercity faded to darkness as soon as they made the first turn down the pipe. It wasn’t much of a problem for Zamosk, with her dark vision, or for Weird A, whose sight was a mystery Chandra hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to ask about, but she and Samut had to don the Izzet-made goggles they’d been issued to see anything, as even the combined light of Weird A’s glow and the fire from Crix’s feet weren’t nearly enough to cut through the darkness.

Mercifully, the eternals had chosen the most straightforward pipe system Chandra had seen so far on Ravnica for their retreat. The winding path only forked at rare intervals, and Myczil had left small scratch marks, embedded with glowing spores, to indicate the paths he took.

“Suppose he was wrong though,” Chandra panted as they ran. “We might be letting the eternals escape.”

“Better that than lose a whole district,” Samut replied. “I almost hope he _did_ take the wrong tunnel.”

“Less talking, breathers,” Weird A hissed. “You’ll let every eternal in Ravnica know were we are. I’ve run into enough metal skeleton ambushes this month and I’d like to keep those numbers stagnant.”

Chandra pursed her lips and kept walking in silence, even though her voice had hardly been any louder than their footfalls, or the hum of Crix’s rocket-legs.

Samut looked like she had the same thought. She pulled ahead suddenly at a jog, made a quick recon signal, and sprinted off down the tunnel, moving surprisingly quietly in her leather-wrapped boots.

The rest of them slowed to a brisk walk. Crix settled on Weird A’s shoulder, careful to keep the soles of her feet a few inches away from its gelatinous exterior.

“Will you be all right if things get violent?” Chandra whispered, low as she could manage.

Crix scoffed. “If things get violent I’m jetting my way the hell out of the undercity. Someone has to survive and give a report on where these bastards have gone.”

“Glad to have you on the team,” Weird A hissed.

They walked on for another few minutes before they heard the soft _thump_ -ing of Samut’s footfalls. She rounded a curve in the pipe and skidded to a stop, sending up a small wave of sewage to lap at their toes.

“Up Ahead. There’s a burst in the pipe that leads to another underground space. They’re just...waiting there. Two eternals and a goblin.”

Crix swore softly. “Another Izzet touched by madness. That’s nothing new, but who in the blazes would get wrapped up with these creatures?”

Samut shrugged.

Zamosk shook her head. “What about Myc?”

“No sign of him. He might have gone past the break in the pipe, but if he’s the great hunter I keep hearing that he is, he couldn’t have possibly missed them.”

“Maybe for the best,” Chandra whispered. “If he went in as hot-headed as you say he did, they might have set off the bombs if he _did_ catch up.”

“So what do _we_ do?” Weird A gurgled.

A brief silence fell between them. Zamosk smacked her fist into her palm.

“Krokt, let’s get a move on. Maybe we’ll see what they’re waiting around for.”

They found the burst in the pipe several hundred feet along. The walls grew thicker with mold as they went. Disgusting, but it muffled their footfalls nicely. Somewhere above them another pipe or set of pipes were thrumming loudly, enough that they made it to the hole without scaring off their quarry.

The rip was a crude pressure burst; an oblong hole of curved metal points that bent out like jagged petals, allowing Chandra, Samut, and Zamosk to peek down into a narrow stone chamber. It was empty except for two eternals, and the Goblin from their expedition team, standing unusually still and silent. There was no light in the tunnel at all, and through her dark-vision goggles Chandra could just barely make out their silhouettes.

The eternals _were_ whispering. And judging from the shake of the head Chandra received when she glanced over at Samut, not in any dialect of Amonkhet.

“...too impatient. He’ll send us back to gold-counting when he finds out about this.”

“We did what we were instructed to do, didn’t we? Caused havoc, made folks think it was those Golgari thugs what were responsible for it. He’s got no reason to be anything but grateful.”

“Silence. Both of you prattling fools.”

That last remark came from the goblin. His voice sounded...wrong. Wrong in a way Chandra couldn’t have explained even if it had been safe to talk just then.

“Or what?” One of the eternals asked, cocking a head at the goblin. Its mouth didn’t move at all, though the cavities in its skull glowed ever so slightly. “He won’t come? I’d just as soon not deal with him after blowing our cover like that back there. This body’s a proper pain but it’s better than getting ripped out and made incorpral again.”

“Incorporeal,” The other eternal corrected.

“Oh, shut up.”

They passed the next few minutes in silence. Troll, humans, and Goblin breathing as softly as they could, eternal and weird not breathing at all. The only sounds were the rush of water overhead and the occasional rat scampering across the floor of the chamber below.

“Gentlemen.”

The new figure didn’t walk into the room, or enter in any other way Chandra had seen. He was just suddenly _there_ , eyes glowing yellow.

“Good of you to join us,” The goblin said, in his strange, hollow voice. “Didn’t get too much muck on your cape?”

“Don’t try and deflect from your failure,” the golden-eyed figure snarled. “I assume that’s why I’m here? Unless basic arithmetic suddenly escapes, me, you still owe us two months of terror if you want an end to your contracts.”

“I have no contract with you, corpse.” The goblin’s voice, alien as it was, managed to drip with disdain all the same.

“Then it should be clear enough that I wasn’t talking to you, _insect_.”

One of the eternals shifted. “Slavomir-”

“That’s ‘Master Slavomir’ while I still hold your spirits in debt, and just ‘master’ while we are in a place where prying ears listen in.”

Chandra’s blood ran cold and she exchanged a glance across the hole with Samut and Zamosk. Each had already drawn a blade. Chandra could hear Weird A shift behind her.

And in the chamber below, the figure with the glowing eyes pointed up towards the ceiling-

-in a completely different direction.

A dark blur flung itself from above, falling like a hammer onto the shoulders of the closest eternal. They hit the floor together with a violent clatter of metal-coated bones and shouts of surprise.

“Follow me.” Samut pulled off her goggles and gestured for Chandra to do the same. “Give me two seconds, then make as much light as you can.” She gripped the jagged edges of the hole and dropped straight down onto the floor.

Chandra spared a look and a nod at the others, sliding her regular goggles in place of her dark-vision set. Then she hauled herself out and on top of the pipe. Her hair and hands ignited.

The figures still standing on the ground spun to look at her. The standing eternal was mid-crouch, bending to help its comrade, who was struggling on the floor with Myczil. The goblin shied away from the light, but did not avert its eyes, and the yellow-eyed figure, a tall man in a fine suit of black and gold, hissed and covered his face.

None of them saw Samut coming. She plowed through them in the flickering light, smacking the goblin to the ground with the flat of one blade, kicking the golden-eyed figure into the wall, and finally severing the arm of the eternal that held a silver-red detonator in its hand.

The blow flung arm and detonator up into the air. Crix shot out of the pipe, snatching the arm and cradling it up toward the ceiling, away from the fight on the ground. The power pack on her shoulders strobed with lights, illuminating the room in reds and blues.

Zamosk was out of the pipe by then. She pulled the eternal off of Myczil and slammed it against the wall with both hands, knocking its fungal plating loose. Weird A hit the ground behind her and thrust its spear at the yellow-eyed figure. The figure stumbled back from the mizzium blade, still doubled over, and grasped inside his cloak. When he pulled his hand back it held a golden mask, which he pressed to his face. He dodged another jab, and spun to hiss at the others.

“Idiots! Kill them!”

The one-armed eternal touched a charm on his chest, and wings burst from his back, translucent and multi-hued, like stained glass. He knocked Samut back with one wing, and took off toward the ceiling at Crix.

Chandra flung a sheet of fire at the eternal’s back. He twisted aside, dodging the flames, closing with Crix. Chandra hauled her arm back to hurl another attack, but instead the fire sputtered between her fingers, and her arm fell to her side, heavy. A pale white shackle materialized around her wrist, a ghostly chain binding her to the pipe.

She grunted. The shackle burned with a numbing pain when Chandra tried to channel fire through it. She tugged at it, and glanced desperately around the room. Zamosk and Myczil were grappling with their eternal, who had produced a two-handed axe made of light, wielding it with alarming deftness and speed. The goblin had pounced on Samut, though she was holding it at arm’s length as it kicked and bit and punched the air. Golden-mask had grabbed Weird A’s spear by the shaft and was wrestling for it with one hand, while the other pointed at Chandra, glowing with the same wispy light as the shackle.

Her other hand went heavy, and a second shackle surrounded the wrist, binding her hands together and to the pipe. Gold-mask returned his attention to Weird A, and pulled the spear from its grasp.

“Vulgar elemental magics,” he scoffed, and shoved the tip of the spear through Weird A’s head. It fell to its knees and slumped, half-upright.

Chandra bellowed in anger, pulling at the shackles. They held fast. Her heat and mana raged in her chest.

Gold mask dropped the shaft disdainfully, and advanced on Chandra, shooting his hands up at where she crouched. Another shackle manifested around her neck and she started to feel dizzy. Cold.

Chandra fell to her knees. The heat rose in her boots, pooling in her knees, unable to flow up through either arm.

“Sh-sh...”

“What’s that?” Gold mask hissed. “Begging for your life _now,_ Izzet-rat?”

“Should have cuffed my legs too, dipshit.”

The section of pipe under Chandra’s knees, super-heated from the mana Chandra had channeled into it, tore free and fell straight down.

Golden-mask shrieked and leapt away. The collars vanished as he retreated, and Chandra sprang off the pipe just as it hit the wet rock floor with a smash and a hiss.

Warmth flooded Chandra’s upper body. Golden-mask drew a golden dagger from his cloak, and lunged to strike her. Before he could make it two steps, a giant blue hand shot out and grasped his head. Golden-mask’s feet slipped and he struggled, suspended a foot above the floor.

“Sucker. I don’t have a brain.” Weird A slammed Golden-mask’s head against the stone, and pummeled him once in the chest. The spear was still sticking straight through its head.

“Not bad for a vulgar elemental, huh?” Weird A hurled Golden-mask backhand into the air, where he collided with the winged eternal. Stained glass wings collapsed around the blow, and they tumbled in a graceless arc to the floor, leaving Crix alone in the air.

Across the room, Zamosk had stripped away the other eternal’s axe, and Myczil had it in an arm-lock, though he was bleeding badly from his own shoulder. They hauled the eternal to the ground and pinned it. Zamosk began smashing its arms and legs with a cudgel to keep it from rising.

Closer to Chandra, Samut had disengaged from the goblin, and was trying to force him into a corner without killing him outright. The goblin hissed, jumped from floor to wall, somersaulted over Samut’s head, and slashed at her with long, dirty claws with much more athleticism than Chandra had expected. She moved in to block the Goblin’s escape through the doorway, but he leapt, kicked off Chandra’s chest, and landed on Samut’s back. Filthy teeth sank into her shoulder.

“No!”

Chandra cast a fireball. Small. Quick, and accurate. It hit the Goblin and ripped him off Samut’s back, slamming him against the wall. He fell to the floor, his body burning.

“Gods!” Samut kept her feet. Her armor appeared to have warded the worst of the blow, but blood still soaked through her tunic.

“Samut!” Chandra ran to her friend, and threw an arm around her. Samut kept her feet, but leaned up against Chandra, cursing lightly.

“We’ll disinfect it. How are you feeling?”

“Like a goblin just tried to bite my fucking neck!” Samut growled. “Just let me-”

Something flew at them from the Goblin’s smoldering body, green and glinting in the erratic light. With her arms full of Samut, Chandra wouldn’t have time to conjure-

Samut’s sword lashed out and hacked into the projectile, deflecting it over their heads. Chandra caught a glimpse of the goblin’s head, separated from the body at the neck and cut down the middle, still snapping.

“That’s, uh.” Chandra tracked the head until it smashed against the floor behind them. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“No,” Samut grunted. She pushed herself upright, disengaging from Chandra, patting her on the shoulder. “Goblin. Let’s help _our_ goblin.” She nodded at the winged eternal. It had disengaged from Golden-mask, and was launching streamers of fire at Crix. The old goblin was dodging as best she could, but having the brightest light in the room strapped to her back made her a huge target.

“You take left,” Samut said. “I’ll take right?”

Chandra grinned, bearing her teeth. “Race you.”

Samut bolted forward. Chandra thrust out an arm, and a fireball crawled along her elbow, growing in size until it sped past and over her hand.

They hit together. Samut shattered the left wing to shards with twin blows that hit with a crack like thunder. The right wing pitched forward and melted in a rainbow splatter, spinning the eternal off balance.

Weird A was there to stop the eternal’s spin, driving a spear straight down through its chest and through half a foot of stone, pinning the undead warrior to the floor.

Golden-mask dashed around the side of the room, making a clear flight to the door. Myczil leapt up from the eternal he and Zamosk had restrained and tackled Golden-mask around the waist. They fell to the ground in a rolling mass of strikes and flailing legs. Myczil grappled successfully a moment, then was thrown back by a vicious backhand. He fell back into Zamosk’s arms, and she kept him upright. Samut and Chandra rushed up to hem Golden-mask in. Crix landed behind Golden-mask, and Weird A strode to join them in a tight semicircle around their final foe.

Chandra let a tight grin crawl across her face. “Looks like we win, creep.”

The golden-masked stranger swore again, and reached back into his cloak. He produced a box identical to the one Crix held.

“You’ve won _nothing!_ Back away from me immediately or that entire filthy cave of undercity animals turns to dust!”

They all tensed as one. Myczil and Samut stopped advancing, though Samut’s eyes were tracing the floor and golden-mask, as if she were considering whether she could make it to him before his finger touched the button.

“Why?” Chandra asked, shelving her own instinct to cover her opponent from head to toe with flame.

“As if I would waste my breath explaining to any of you scum,” Golden-mask growled. Now that they had all stopped moving, now that Chandra and Crix were filling the room with light, Chandra realized that the fine clothes he wore were in fact those of an Amonkhet vizier, and the mask about his face a crude approximation of a skeleton.

Samut had clearly noticed as well. Since her gaze had gone from searching to cold anger.

“I name _you_ scum,” she hissed. “For three reasons. Your cowardice for one, your appropriation of my people’s garb as costume for your senseless evil for another, and your collaboration with the eternals against your own people.” She pointed her sword at sigil hidden among the design of golden-mask’s collar, and Chandra’s eyes widened as she recognized the Orzhov sunburst. “Why? What force have you sold yourself too?”

“I serve no-one, stranger. _I_ am the one who controls here. Do you think a common lackey would hold the contracts necessary to ransom the souls of these idiot Wojek soldiers? Would a common lackey have the power to seal their spirits to undead forms from another world. No-on instructs me, you fools. _I_ am equal partner in-”

Golden mask appeared to realize he had in fact begun spilling his secrets, and his confession cut off with an affronted grunt.

“No matter.” He backed away from them, sliding toward the doorway. “Pat yourselves on the back, insects. You’ve destroyed one wing of our operations. You’ve pursued my agents down a dead-end stretch of the undercity, with your only escape back through the Gnarrhide district.” He stepped into the doorway. “Enjoy your tomb.”

His finger flicked down, clicking the detonator switch.

Chandra felt her heart lurch. To either side of her, Samut and Myczil started, taking half-steps toward Golden Mask. Crix cried out, a brief, hoarse yelp.

Gold-mask barked out a triumphant laugh.

Then all of them, golden-mask included, froze to listen to the distinct lack of an explosion in the distance.

Chandra glanced at the pipe. They’d walked a far distance, but not far enough that they wouldn’t have heard an explosion. She exchanged a look with Samut. Behind Chandra, Myczil let out a sigh,

“You shouldn’t underestimate insects, Orzhov.”

Golden mask tilted his head in an almost comical gesture of confusion. Then he yelped, and threw the detonator to the floor, clutching his hand. Black and green beetles crawled over his hand and cloak, bearing long, jagged pincers. Smaller insects swarmed over and around the detonator, which sparked and hissed with little flashes of light.

Zamosk flung a knife. Golden-mask, distracted by the beetles, caught the weapon in the shoulder, and roared in anger. Zamosk and Samut converged on him, and he fell backward, dodging past Crix and through the doorway and into the shadows.

Samut and Zamosk dashed after him. They disappeared into the darkness, and their steps echoed out into the room for several paces, followed by a muffled crash and a string of curses.

“It’s a blasted dead end!”

They clambered back out of the doorway, looking peeved.

“Could we stabilize those lights, maybe?” Zamosk asked, shielding her eyes.

“Right.” Crix flipped a switch on her gauntlet. The red and blue lights went out, and were replaced by three solid white lights that flooded the room. “Krokt!”

They all turned at the sound of Crix’s cry. She leapt back into Zamosk’s protective grasp, pointing at the floor.

The goblin head lay more or less still on the cold stone. But inside the split skull, something was writhing. Squirming. The face began to collapse and spread.

Myczil leapt forward, hand outstretched. The squirming intensified but the mass that had been the goblin’s head began to re-accumulate. Now Chandra could see blue worms forming out of the head, and Myczil was trying to...control them? Contain them?

“I need a container. Something.” A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. “My father told me about these. Dimir shapeshifter worms. They don’t like being controlled. Not by magic like mine.”

Weird A held out his hand and, with a steam and a hiss, a bubble expanded from the surface of its palm. It pressed the bubble over the goblin’s head, and the worms were pulled inside, where they writhed violently, but securely.

For a few breaths, everyone – Myczil, Crix, Chandra, Samut, Weird 1, just stared at the worm-filled bubble, and at the incapacitated eternals, still struggling feebly.

“Well,” Samut said after a long moment, “What do we make of all that?”


	5. Nissa

The predawn was quiet. A rare, wonderful thing on Zendikar, and doubly so for Nissa. Not just that world around was hushed, but that her mind was free of unbidden voices and the immediate cacophony of the land.

Perhaps it was because Akoum always rumbled below its surface, roil or no roil. Full of humming, molten veins. So continuous it faded into the recesses of her mind.

Nissa breathed in, slow, and mounted the slow roll of hillside ahead of her.

The quiet was truly a treasure.

That and delicate. A heavy fruit on the branch, dangling precariously, ready to split from the tree and burst on the grass at any moment.

The land underfoot was roil-scarred, but had adopted the stillness in the wake of the titans better than most places. Cool air, scented with dew and the rough sweetness of wildflowers, filled her throat and lungs. The air of Akoum was faintly sulfurous, but that brimstone was a pleasant note. The soil here was so rich with nutrients as to be almost delicious to consider, the grasses and wildflowers so verdant as to make Nissa’s head swim with giddy strokes. A good spot. She settled down into the grasses, cross-legged, and closed her eyes. With even breaths, she let her mind settle onto-

**Mover.**

Nissa didn’t particularly object to swearing, she just rarely felt inclined to use it herself. Her vocabulary for profanity was thus short enough that she got through all of it in the space of about ten seconds.

**Yes, good morning, Mover.**

Fog coalesced behind Nissa’s eyes. It had started as an angel, months ago, but with every conversation Emrakul shifted. First the form had twisted into tendrils of unearthly flesh, trailing off to the peripheral horizon. Those had become vines and roots in time; vegetal wings stretching out in every direction.

Beautiful in a way, but utterly defiant of any form Nissa had encountered.

**Morning _._ A time of power, when the flesh is at its most rested. **

“I know when you’re trying to ease into talking about something else,” Nissa muttered. “Take it from someone who hates small talk. You’re no good at it.”

There was a bristling in the back of Nissa’s mind, and a faraway sound like am injured wolf.

**Maybe not.**

Nissa exhaled, and focused on her heartbeat. Easy. Easy. Putting Emrakul off would just make her sulk.

“What would you like?”

**You’ve come quite a distance.**

Nissa let her eyes slide open. The blue in the sky was lightening by degrees, and the stars were fading away into the surge of morning. Ahead, the mountains were growing more distinct.

“It’s a large world. To seek out all of its wounds we have no choice but to travel.”

**I do not mean the trifling distances of space, Mover.**

Nissa sighed. “Yes, in power too.” Her lips twisted into into a small smile. “It’s always power with you.”

**Power _and_ place. A gardener does not just tend to a tree, but judges the best place for it to flourish, and to bear its good fruit.**

A laugh broke through morning silence of the hills. Nissa gasped for breath. The sudden, unbidden image of Emrakul tending to a plant laden with Nissa-faced fruit filled her thoughts.

**Well, not quite like that...**

“Is that what I am? A tree for you to cultivate?”

_**You** _ **are the** **Gardener. I myself am simply a gardener with more experience, who wishes to see you add to the garden to the fullest of your ability.**

Nissa shook her head, shoulders still shaking. “I don’t think our visions for a garden are the same.”

**I’m coming to terms with that, yes.**

“And here we are, still.”

**Still. I prefer you to succeed on your own terms, rather than not at all.**

“Right.”

Nissa shook her head. She was well resigned to the fact that whatever Emrakul wanted was completely unrooted in any sort of motivation she could grapple with. Or that she would want to grapple with. That last part had taken a while to realize, but freeing up the time spent worrying about the eldrazi’s wants had reduced the stress in Nissa’s life considerably.

**You’ve begun meditating again. That...seems to help.**

“Yes,” Nissa replied. “Despite the obstacles.” A warm rush of wind curled around Nissa, and she let out a slow, whistling breath in tune with the breeze.

“You don’t want to talk about meditation though, do you?”

**No.**

“Can it wait? I _would_ like to actually dedicate some time to meditation this morning.”

**...it could. What is so important about this morning?**

“Specifically? I’m going to be speaking to someone shortly, and I’d like to have the energy for conversation, and to not hold it against the other person.” Nissa drew in another breath. “and more generally, I’d prefer if I could have multiple mornings uninterrupted at some point in the future.

**That will be challenging while there are so many things in the world for us to discuss.**

Nissa’s next breath came out low, an unintended growl.

**But the time ahead of us is vast, and a morning of silence won’t set us back too terribly.**

Nissa held her breath, teeth grit, waiting for more. After several long seconds, during which no new voices intruded on the morning, she exhaled and shut her eyes again.

Jace had dealt with Emrakul in his head before. Would he have continued to bear her presence as gracefully as Nissa had so far? Maybe. He probably would have suffered more, with all the challenges his telepathy already presented him. Gideon would have gritted it out. Whatever the mental equivalent of a stare-down was, that’s likely what his interactions with Emrakul would have been. There was a shared stubbornness there.

A small pang rippled through Nissa’s chest.

Liliana certainly would have complained about it non-stop. And Chandra...Chandra would probably have complained too, in her honest, unfiltered way. A small smile crept across Nissa’s face at the thought of Emrakul egging the pyromancer on, telling her to burn and keep burning.

The smile fell away as another pang stung her. To burn. Chandra didn’t need that sort of negative influence in her life. Were the others taking care of her? Jace and Ajani and the others who’d joined the Watch? Nissa had told Chandra once that she was loved. That she loved her. And now where was she? A multiverse away, having left the pyromancer to make her own way in the world. She’d abandoned her. She’d told Chandra she loved her and then abandoned-

Nissa pulled in a sudden breath, drawing her chest out slowly, slowly, as the morning air filled her lungs.

Those were unproductive thoughts. She recognized her mistake. She was going to fix it.

Chandra didn’t need her. She knew that. Chandra was strong and resourceful and she had friends. Friends other than Nissa who could watch out for her. It wasn’t for Chandra’s safety that Nissa wanted to see her again, though she longed to protect her. It wasn’t because she thought she needed Chandra, though she felt worse to be away from her. They had full lives, each of them, and no end to work to keep them occupied through them.

She wanted to see Chandra because...

Nissa let the air rush out of her, a warm rush that traced past her lips, her chin, and out onto the fields.

She loved Chandra. As a friend, certainly. Her companionship was was more than just enjoyable, it was something that Nissa sought, and would have sought more often if she’d been more sure of her feelings during the days they spent on Ravnica and Kaladesh. It was more than that, though. Jace’s company was pleasant. Liliana’s presence had been...thought provoking. Gideon’s company had been wonderful. Ashaya’s presence was absolute balm to Nissa. Chandra…

Nissa swallowed. Her throat suddenly very dry.

Chandra was warm. She was lovely. Chandra’s energy chased away the weariness that others brought on. Nissa would have wrapped herself in Chandra if she could, but…

...but when would she have done such a thing? Life had taken them from one crisis to the next, and then the aftermath had drawn them away from each other.

Nissa shook her head again. “When” was a fair question, but there was no point in blaming herself. Even less in blaming Chandra, though she had wanted to more than once. They had both made mistakes in regard to each other because of the stress of their circumstances, and what mattered now was that Nissa approach the next step of their...relationship with full acknowledgment of the context their last disastrous encounter had taken place in.

She drew in another breath. Even. Steady. She’d let her heartbeat accelerate.

Meditation was challenging with a woman on her mind.

Other creatures had wandered out onto the hills, drawing close to where Nissa sat. They moved slow. Deliberate. Pausing every few steps to dip their heads to the earth. To the sweet grasses.

She nodded, faintly, keeping her eyes closed. Just a little time left.

To think of what? Chandra, certainly, but perhaps she needed to re-start. Nissa couldn’t pull away from their last parting. From the hurt of it. From the long day afterward spent digging furrows in the soil with her bare hands just so she wouldn’t have a moment of stillness to think about Chandra’s words…

“Too many negatives,” She whispered. “Don’t dwell too much on the negatives.” The breath ran slowly out of her again. On the inhale, she focused on each scent in the air. The bittersweet grasses. The distant treeline. The film of sulfur. The soil. This was home. This was Zendikar.

And Zendikar was healing.

There was so much too do still, but they were making real progress. In Oran-Rief. At the Halimar Basin. Here in Akoum, where the volcanic energies were finally given a chance to enrich the land. To help it grow, and not just tear it asunder as the roil passed through.

Chandra would see that. Chandra would understand Nissa had stayed on Zendikar not to avoid her, but to make a place of safety in the multiverse. A place where life wasn’t lived in fear or constant struggle against death and oppression. A place where Chandra could come and be apart from all the hardships in her life. Where they could sit together, talk together, grow closer together…

Nissa flushed. The sudden warmth took her back to Ravnica. Chandra would come to see her on the best days, sitting just a few paces away, sometimes falling asleep as she waited for Nissa, her lap gathering cats and her heat filling the space. She might have been there just then, waiting with her easy smile-

A shout ripped through the silence of the morning. Rough and energetic. “See how much better it is where the grass is lush? Next time be quicker about moving out!”

Nissa blinked and opened her eyes. Large, shaggy shapes surrounded her, their long coats almost blending with the grass in the morning sun. Long faces shifted as the oxen chewed through the fields.

And with the oxen, there would surely be-

“Ach!” A broad-bellied man, frowning and bare to the waist, came striding up the rise, waving his hand through a cloud of gnats. “And again we wake up after the bugs!”

A grin curled Nissa’s mouth. She propped her staff onto the ground and rose to her feet. “Good morning, Bruse.”

“Nissa!” The bare-chested man spread his arms, a lopsided grin spilling out from his pout. “Finally someone to brighten the morning! You see how I must push and prod these stubborn beasts to even graze themselves properly!”

Nissa nodded in return, stopping a few paces short of arm’s length. “It’s wonderful to see you. And the Oxen.” She patted the nearest on the nose. It lowed like a cat purring. “How are you? How is the grazing?”

“Oh, yes, apologies.” Bruse planted his hands on his hips. “Mm, The oxen have taken a great liking to the new grasses, but it is re-growing too thin near the sea, and where the ground grows rocky. Will not hold the dirt together after a few generations, I don’t think.”

“Yes, we noticed as we came in from the coast. The next generation of seeds should do better.”

“Thank goodness. You hear that, oaf?” Bruse gave the closest ox a sharp look. “Soon even the plants will have more vigor than you.”

The ox just snorted in reply.

Bruse shook his head. “But enough about dull creatures. What brings you to our humble corner of the world? Who is this powerful lady and this beautiful man you have brought with you?”

Nissa turned. Sorin and Nahiri were hiking up the hill, Nahiri bearing their combined parcel of tents and provisions across her shoulders. Ever since her arm had healed, the kor was insistent on doing as much of the physical lifting their work required as possible. She and Sorin still walked with a distance between them, but there were no more nervous glances at one another.

“This is Bruse,” Nissa called to them. “Herder and leader of the Goma Fada caravans.”

“Which is just more herding,” Bruse finished, patting one of the oxen on the flank.

“Nahiri.” Nahiri shifted the bags on her shoulders, She smiled at Bruse. “Builder, I guess. Though I suppose we all are these days.”

“Sorin Markov.” Sorin tapped the hilt of his sword, and nodded. “Vampire.”

“A pleasure!” Bruse grinned and threw his arms open as the other two drew close. “Do you hug?” Before either could respond he pulled them together in a two-armed bear hug. Sorin looked mildly surprised, but patted Bruse’s back as well as his pinned arm could manage. Nahiri was grinning.

“I-I guess so,” She said. She managed to keep a hold on their equipment through the hug.

Bruse let them go, but kept a hand on both their shoulders, looking from one to the other. “It’s not every person that makes agreeable company for our Nissa. I can tell you two are fellows of good character, eh?”

Nahiri and Sorin exchanged looks, and, to Nissa’s surprise, smiled, however slightly.

“We try,” Nahiri said.

“Trying is good.” Bruse let their shoulders go as well. “There is a great need for trying these days. Challenges all over the world.”

“Yet always time to see friends,” Nissa offered.

“We were surprised to find you were coming!” Bruse planted his hands back on his hips. “Last we heard I thought you’d disappear into the Tazeem forests for good. Or spend all your time working on that fool wall.”

Nahiri’s flush deepened. “The Sea Gate renovation is coming together incredibly well, actually. We’ll have a new lighthouse built by the end of next year.”

Bruse laughed, and slapped his belly. “I don’t doubt it, if they’ve all got as much muscle as you do!” He curled up his own bicep for emphasis, then pointed a finger off into the hills past a narrow treeline. “The caravan is about a mile off that way, if you’re looking for Tazri.”

Nissa nodded “We are, though I was hoping to ask a favor of you before we go...”

“Ask away.”

“Just a few extra creatures for you to watch while we’re here.”

“Going into livestock, eh?” Bruse scratched his chin. “I’m happy to help, though I can make no promises of safety out here in the hills. We have bandits and beasts, and not a few eldrazi still out there.”

“Oh?” Nissa hoped she was feigning surprise well. She was looking forward to Bruse’s reaction to what she’d brought along.

“Of course! Blasted eldrazi are at our herds every other week; spook the oxen, trample their grazing pastures, or drive them to stampede! It’s no joke!”

“Then I think you’ll be happy with what I’ve brought. Walk with me a moment?”

“Of course! Ivax, Tonnorev. Be hospitably.” Bruse wagged a finger at the closest Oxen. Sorin was already edging away from one ox that had approached him to sniff at his coat. Nahiri was laughing as another licked at her face.

Nissa started back down the hill, in the direction of where they’d made camp the night before. Bruse trundled along after her, arms swinging at his sides.

“I’m quite curious what mystery you’ve brought us this time,” Bruse puffed as they reached the bottom of the hill and started up a low rise leading to the treeline. “Besides your charming friends, of course.”

“Something I’m a bit unsure about,” Nissa replied. “I need to warn you, this will be alarming, but there’s no need to be scared.”

“Well, _that_ certainly puts a mind at ease,” Bruse grumbled.

To his credit, Bruse did not cry out or flinch when they arrived at the trench, and gazed down at the horde of eldrazi drones huddled within. Nor did he try to stop Nissa when she knelt down to press her palm against the nearest one, to show him there was no danger of attack.

“Truly I never know what to expect when I see you,” he managed, pulling at the edge of his moustache. “What sort of magic has vexed them?”

“ _My_ magic,” Nissa said. “I’m still working out the fine points, but they take my direction now. More or less.”

Bruse raised an eyebrow. “Is it more or less, I’d like to know.” he edged toward the trench and reached out a hand to touch one of the drones. His thick finger tapped the skull. There was a dull click of nail on bone.

“We’ve had visitors talking of domesticated eldrazi,” He said after a moment. “Wild stories from travelers and messengers. Gossip, we called it. I wouldn’t have believed it until this morning.” He looked over at Nissa. “You brought these from Tazeem?”

“The Tazeem spawn are hard at work in Tazeem. _This_ is what we’ve encountered since we reached Akoum. I’ve come to offer them to Goma Fada, or anyone else who might need them.”

Bruse laughed. “Need Eldrazi?” He shook his head, still smiling. “Madness. But Zendikar is mad, is she not?”

“Zendikar keeps us all on our toes,” Nissa agreed. “May I ask you to watch over them? I can keep them moving if the caravan continues on, but I’d prefer to have eyes on them. Eyes I can trust.”

Bruse massaged his jaw with one hand, eyes still making a slow circuit of the drones.

“I understand if not. Nahiri or Sorin can stay behind, but-”

Bruse held up a hand. “This is nothing, compared to the lummoxes I must deal with every day. I will just have to make sure my beasts don’t wander too close. We have plans to migrate westward today, but the caravan moves sluggishly lately, and so they must explore every corner of the fields to graze as they need to.”

“Thank you.”

“Ah.” Bruse waved a hand at Nissa. “It is nothing. A common courtesy favor for a friend.” He moved to head back towards the others. “These eldrazi...they will require feed?”

Nissa hurried after him. “None at all. They take what they need from the land directly, and what they need is very little with the titans gone.”

“Good, good. More mouths to feed are not unbearable but...” He shrugged, lifting his hands in front of him. “There are many mouths as it is.”

“Have you been able to re-settle any of the refugees?”

“Some, but many more have joined us. Building material is scarce, and too many of our new members are accustomed to heavier homes than the tents we can offer.” He approached an ox on its way down the slope and patted it on the mouth. “Around, you curious beast! Nothing for you down there.”

“Thank you, Bruse.” Nissa gave another ox a gentle pat. “We’ll see you soon. I expect?”

“Just follow the stench,” he chuckled, spreading his arms around at the herd. “There will be a meeting of the caravan leaders tonight. We’ll toast our continued good fortune. And our new friends, of course!” He waved at Sorin and Nahiri, up on the hill. Nahiri’s arms were full, but Sorin returned the gesture, which looked entirely out of place, coming from him.

* * *

They encountered the first citizens of Goma Fada a little less than a mile from the main caravan. At first it was other herders like Bruse, and a few hunters out collecting game for morning meals. Closer to the tents they found children gathering berries in the thickets, fishing, cleaning clothes on the stream banks, and playing under the distant but watchful eye of the caravan sentries, a mix of nomads and armored guards.

The caravan was a vast expanse of tents, arranged haphazardly for the sheer number of people in it. From a distance the attempts to maintain a sort of order to the layout were apparent. The nomads trying to maintain some sense of structure. Towards the eastern end several of the tents lay spread out on the ground, and others towards the center were coming down in quick order.

Preparations to move. People. Shouting. Working. Moving together in the flurry of colors and bodies.

**Breathe.**

“I know,” Nissa muttered.

“Nissa!”

A figure peeled off from a circle of soldiers standing around the nearest tent. Nissa blinked, then smiled. She almost hadn’t recognized Tazri without her strapping, halo-crowned breastplate.

“General. Thank you for having us.”

Tazri snorted, and pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Goma Fada will have just about anyone these days. You’re the most welcome visitor I’ve had in weeks.” She extended a hand to Nissa. “If you’re up for it?”

Nissa smiled and accepted the General’s hand. Tazri took it and they bent their arms at the elbow, in a mock arm-wrestle. It was their little tribute, ever since Nissa had brought back news of the war on Ravnica, and its casualties.

“General Tazri, may I introduce my companions, Sorin and Nahiri. They’ve been invaluable in our recent work in Oran-rief.”

“I’ve heard good things and strange things,” Tazri said, looking the others over. “More planeswalkers? Glad to have extra hands to fight, don’t get me wrong, but I’d rather we had workers to spare from the Sea Wall. We have several hundred people not quite cut out for nomadic living, plenty of land, and nowhere good on the continent to settle them cut off from the caravan.” Her eyes rested on Nahiri.

“Lithomancer, right?”

“I dabble in stoneforging,” Nahiri answered with a grin.

“Modest,” Sorin said, shaking Tazri’s hand. “She’s done more to restore Sea Gate in the span of a day than most could have done in a month.

Nahiri rolled her eyes, but her grin pressed further against her cheek.

“You’ve caught us in the middle of a move,” Tazri said, leading them back into the tents. All around them the nomads flitted through the rows, directing the collapse and packing of tents, poles, and all manner of liminal homes. Tazri pointed off into the hills, where the ground rose to approach the mountains. “We’re looking to get five miles by midday, and another five after that, to get the herds to fresher pastures.” She glanced at Nahiri, still casually bearing their equipment over her shoulder. “You seem to be packed already, so that’s one thing taken care of.”

“So you’ve been able to stay at least a little mobile?” Nahiri asked. She looked every bit the native among these people, and Nissa was dressed relatively inconspicuously, but her eyes and markings still drew stares. Sorin drew even more attention, between his dress and his distinctly un-kor-like pallor.

“Somewhat. The nomads know their business, but enough of the people here are fled from other regions, or other continents entirely. They’ve learned how to flee, but not how to migrate in an orderly fashion. My forces here are trying to help them do so without overburdening the Goma Fada.”

“It seems a losing battle,” Sorin observed.

“Yes, well.” Tazri sighed and stopped at a pile of wrapped canvas and wooden poles. “Its a damned stretch better than things were a year ago. It’s a lot less complicated when the eldrazi are only attacking you some of the time.”

Nissa nodded. “About that...well, in the spirit of not making things overly complicated, I should warn you we’ve come bearing a potentially alarming gift.” She looked to Sorin, who, after an awkward pause, stepped toward Tazri, and bent to whisper something in her ear. Nissa didn’t watch the general’s face, but could guess at her reaction from the restless way her fingers flexed and unflexed as Sorin spoke.

“A few hundred?” She said at last, not giving context to the number for the nomads nearby. “How far out?”

“About two miles. They follow my command.”

“They…right, we can discuss that bit later. Can keep them that far away while we move?”

“I can. And Bruse has seen them. He’s keeping watch on them while we move.”

Tazri sighed, furrowed her brow, and rubbed her chin.

“I trust Bruse to the Pistons and back, but by himself...”

“We can check in on him,” Sorin said. “And Nissa will be able to sense if they start to cause trouble.”

“Right.” Tazri dropped her hand, and scanned the surrounding caravan. Enough tents had come down in the last minute that they were now afforded a sweeping view of the whole encampment preparing to migrate. “I’ll see what we can do about letting people know without raising too much of an alarm. In the meantime-” She looked up sharply, eyes moving from Sorin to Nahiri to Nissa. “We have a caravan to move.”

“Of course.” Nissa considered the path ahead. She reached into Zendikar, calling for Ashaya. “How can we help?

* * *

Late afternoon found the caravan settling into the higher foothills of Akoum. Nissa was sweat-drenched, but buzzing with energy when they finally stopped, and barely waited for Ashaya to set down her load of folded tents before hefting one of the bundles up and striding off to find a good spot for it. Tazri’s soldiers, with the guidance of the nomads, were directing everyone to the appropriate locations to pitch tents. A human in light armor pointed Nissa to the high ground, where a small group of goblins and humans had begun to congregate in the shadows of the mountains.

The gentle, rolling hills had given way to rockier slopes, albeit ones where the vegetation had yet to be grazed upon. More peaks rose on the horizon here, and Nissa could make out the faint glow of lava streaming down from the summit, and from the islands of rock that crowned the heights.

“Don’t worry miss, we’re safe from here.” A small goblin child called down at Nissa. “Pa says the lava can’t surprise us as easy no more.” The child’s face fell a bit. “But an eruption sounds awful fun.”

Nissa smiled, hoping it was the right response to the little goblin’s reassurance. “I suppose it does. Have you ever been up in the mountains?”

“When I was too lil’ to remember, miss. Pa an’ me’ve lived under the ground most my life.” The little goblin stomped the ground for emphasis, and nodded her head. “I’d like to someday.”

“That would be...exciting.” Nissa regarded the peaks again. There _was_ something compelling about the bright flows trickling through rock and mountain forests. About the islands of stone pouring out their red-hot contents onto the ground below, shaping Zendikar in a slower, more deliberate shift than the roil had.

**You find it beautiful, mover?**

“It’s the land healing on it’s own terms,” She whispered to herself.

**Your own efforts have been just as noteworthy. Just as impactful.**

“Thank you. I wasn’t...complaining, just observing. I think it’s beautiful.”

“What’s that?”

The little goblin was looking up at Nissa, head cocked.

Nissa smiled again. Fewer teeth this time; Jace had mentioned once that that looked alarming.

“Just thinking how beautiful it all looks in the afternoon light.”Nissa lifted the parcel in her arms. “Is your group in need of a tent?”

The little goblin introduced herself as Kavi. Her father thanked Nissa profusely for bringing the tent up. Theirs had been lost in the shuffle of packing earlier that morning due to the zealousness of Tazri’s soldiers, and they’d been making circuits during the day’s migration to find another. The humans and about half of Kavi’s family pitched in to get the tent set, while the rest of the goblins started throwing all manner of ingredients into a big-bellied cauldron. The sweet smell of stew filled the air as they worked,

Kavi chattered nonstop as they worked. About the places the caravan had traveled in the past months. About her cousins who lived in other tents elsewhere in the hills. About her favorite insects and lizards she’d found exploring the fields of Akoum. Once the work of the set-up was complete and the older goblins and humans began preparation for supper, Kavi’s father gave her a small pail of paints to play with. She busied herself with smearing the outside of the tent, climbing up and down the canvas, forming jagged, sharp-angled trees in deep maroon.

“Elf! Elf!” She beckoned Nissa over. “Are these good? Pa says elves know trees better than anyone.”

“They’re as pretty as the real thing,”Nissa knelt by Kavi, looking up at the painting from the little goblin’s perspective. “Did you know there are many different types of trees on Zendikar? Some of grow with roots that look like snakes, or even wurms. Some trees where I come from get so big you might think they were mountains.”

Kavi’s eyes got wide. “Mountains?”

“That’s right,” Nissa nodded.

Kavi’s father came over to Nissa a little later, once Kavi had disappeared into the tent to start painting the insides. “Full of life, isn’t she?”

“Very much,” Nissa agreed. “Will you be returning to the mountains once the caravan travels close enough to the old goblin tunnels?”

“Old goblin tunnels are full of molten rock,” The he said, wistfully. “And mountains themselves will be too full with tall-folk with no-where else to live. Someday the goblins will have their old homes back. Slow going for now. We all need to find work now. Work!” The goblin laughed out that last word like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “Kavi’s father tends the sheep now with these herders. I’ll find work soon too, but for now I watch her.”

Nissa rested with the group a short while, listening to them sing goblin songs and slurp down their supper, which she politely declined, then set out to find her companions. The sun was hanging low and hot crimson above the trees, settling its warm light on the interlocking rings of tents, and the quiet bustle of nomads, refugees, and soldiers within.

Sorin and Nahiri came in from the fields to the south with Bruse. They had taken turns checking in on the progress of the eldrazi, to report back if Bruse was having any trouble with the migration. The three of them seemed to have gotten along rather quickly. Nahiri and Bruse were sharing a joke when Nissa found them leading the oxen to a makeshift corral. Even Sorin had a slight smile on his face.

“They are meek as sheep, these eldrazi of yours,” Bruse exclaimed over a supper of boar and beans with flatbread. “Whatever trick you’ve enchanted them with has done wonders for their disposition.”

The circle of nomads around them shared glances in response to Bruse’s comment. Word of the eldrazi had seeped through the caravan during the day’s travel, crossing Nissa’s path more than once as she’d ridden Ashaya over the fields. Tazri and the Goma Fada leaders had managed to quell any panic, but it had not escaped Nissa’s notice that the riders along the caravan flank had let the camp wander slightly further north than their initial route should have taken them.

“Meek or not, I’m not convinced you should be bringing them along.” Tazri sat on the opposite side of their dining circle, cross-legged on a simple carpet of straw. The other caravan leaders had joined the circle as well: Jermiz, an older Kor with long, metal-clipped locks, and Palana, a round-shouldered woman with a dozen white scars that stood out like shooting stars all up and down her arms.

“We’re grateful that the blasted things won’t be picking off our scouts or eating the livestock,” Palana added through a spoonful of stew, “But I’ll tell you now, no-one’s going to be at ease with a small army of the things following our every move, no matter how docile you say they’ll be.”

“I can take them elsewhere,” Nissa said into her own bowl of onion broth dumplings, “Though I think they could be of use to the people here.”

“The drones been a great help to us in Tazeem already,” Sorin added. “As Nissa says, they don’t have to be here, but it sounds like you could use the help.”

Jermiz scoffed. “The Goma Fada has ever endured. We’ll endure many years more without the help of those...monsters.”

“They could help protect you,” Nahiri said, leaning forward. “Guard the caravan as the beasts and the bandits of the mountains. Who would attack Goma Fada if they found it guarded by the eldrazi?”

“No-one we can’t take care of ourselves,” Jermiz replied.

“I’m sorry, I must agree.” Palana tapped her empty bowl. “We have mouths to feed. People to home. If we accept this help, we’ll be looking over our shoulders all the while. It’s hard enough to look to the future without having to watch our backs as well.”

“Tazeem has adopted the eldrazi to its benefit,” Nahiri said, insistent.

“Feh.” Jermiz waved his hand. “Let Tazeem do as Tazeem will. We won’t follow foolishness with more foolishness.”

Bruse cleared his throat. “I’d like to hear what sort of help they’ve been on Tazeem, actually.” He smiled at Nahiri, and at Sorin. “It sounds like you’ve a good story to tell.”

Nissa set her food down. “Sorin, do we have the map?”

Sorin set down his cup and reached around behind Bruse to grab a flat leather satchel. He reached his hand in and placed a pile of worn maps on the rug in front of him.

Nahiri plucked a map from the pile and spread it over the ground in the middle of the circle, anchoring the corners with the bowls and Sorin’s goblet. The arc of Tazeem filled the parchment, fringed in green, with the interior detailed in white and grey. Nahiri traced his finger along minute lines of red ink that branched into these grey areas like veins at the edge of an eyeball.

“These are the routes we’re using the eldrazi on, to carry equipment and people through the ruins of the ‘Rief. These lines here are where the drones transport rock from the ocean quarries upriver for building, and carry wood back down through the woods and to the coast. Travel through the wastes is much faster now, since the spawn can navigate them better than any beast of burden, and if we keep them moving along different routes, the drain on the land is near negligible.”

“Their appetite to drain and distort is much reduced without Kozilek and Ulamog,” Sorin added. “Whyever that may be.”

Palana raised her brow. “So you don’t truly understand their nature?”

“We didn’t understand the nature of the roil until very recently in our world’s history,” Nissa offered. “And yet we adapted to it. Made use of it.”

“Back then we didn’t have a choice.” Jermiz spat outside the circle. “Now we do. I still say no.”

Tazri held up a hand before Nahiri could retort. “This...experiment. Has it gone entirely smoothly?”

Nahiri frowned “Well not entirely. Obviously there’s been reluctance to use the eldrazi for anything, much less have them in close proximity to our people.”

Nissa nodded “We had them carrying seeds and plants to replenish the wastes, but long proximity with Ulamog’s brood makes the plants sickly. We gave those jobs over to the other spawn and had them transport construction materials instead. They’ve sped up the groundwork for new treetops villages quite a bit.”

“Similarly,” Sorin added, “Kozilek’s spawn are unfit to carry passengers, but do a fine job keeping the transportation lines unmolested by the forest wildlife. And they stay put now, with Nissa’s guidance,”

Nissa dared a glance up at Tazri, and at the caravan leaders. Jermiz shook his head. Palana was looking over the map. Tazri was silent, swirling her water cup in front of her.

Sorin looked to Nahiri, and then to Nissa, but she kept her gaze on the general.

“We can keep fighting the eldrazi,” Nissa said at last. “They’re dying off, and I’m confident my connection with them will make any effort to remove them from our world significantly easier. That said, I’d just as soon turn this into something good for everyone. Something to help us heal.”

“It’s not my place to decide,” Tazri drained her cup, and set it down on the ground. “I leave the decision to the leaders of Goma Fada. My soldiers will help carry out whatever they decide on.”

Bruse shook his head, turned to look at his fellow caravan leaders, and shook his head again. “It’s not to be, I think. I trust Palana and Jermiz to know the moods of the people, and we should not force what they will not accept if we have a choice.” He looked to Nissa, Sorin, and Nahiri. “I am sorry. The offer is much appreciated.”

Nahiri jabbed at the map again. “But-”

“Akoum is more than the Goma Fada,” Tazri broke in. “I know your offer is made in good faith, Nissa, but clearly you will need to look elsewhere to put these...spawn to use.”

Bruse sighed, nodding, and stood. “This is so. In any case, we must take the sentries’ reports, general.” A smile straining under his moustache. “And then perhaps drinks, yes? Something to end the night on a peaceful note.” He waved to the ‘walkers, and started off. Sorin and Nahiri both began to say goodbye at the same time, stopped short, exchanged glances, and turned quickly back to their own supper (Sorin had procured a flask of blood from...somewhere). They must have been hungry.

**Hungry indeed.**

“We can’t be _too_ surprised,” Sorin sighed a little later, when they’d retired to their tent. “I’d probably have rejected a plan to use the eldrazi on Innistrad if you brought it to me without context. We’ve seen what they can do, and so has just about every living person on the plane.”

Nahiri just grunted, pacing the space. The tent the caravan leaders had offered them was big enough for six, and more than tall enough to stand in. Nahiri had been making a constant circuit of it since they arrived while Nissa and Sorin sat on the rug.

“I appreciate your help,” Nissa offered, when Nahiri continued to say nothing. “Despite your misgivings-”

“That’s exactly it!” Nahiri threw her hands up. “I have as much reason to not want the eldrazi here as anyone! Do you think it’s easy for me to support their use? Their deployment under a planeswalkers control? I know as well as anyone how horrific that can turn out, but you don’t see me throwing a wet blanket over good plans just because they involve the spawn.”

“Tazri has a responsibility to the people,” Nissa said, softly. “Bruse does too. I’m glad they’re taking this seriously.”

Nahiri slumped to the ground with a scowl,

“I think,” Sorin said, after a few moments of silence, “that we should also entertain the possibility that we may have to simply...eliminate the eldrazi here. If they’re not wanted, we probably cause more trouble through unrest than we solve by offering their labor.”

“I don’t have a problem with killing them if we need to, but it’s not up to me.” Nahiri glanced over at Nissa. “Not to put you on the spot, of course.”

Nissa shook her head.

“I’ve kept aware that that might be necessary.”

“And the creature in your head?” Sorin was clearly taking care not to challenge Nissa with too much eye contact. “Will... _she_ be as accommodating?”

“Her opinion on the matter doesn’t mean a blasted thing,” Nahiri shot back. “She’s not in control of anything here.”

Sorin raised an eyebrow.

Nissa pursed her lips. The vision of Emrakul’s drones dropping still into the dust flashed through her mind.

“If we need to kill the drones, she won’t interfere. She’s beyond that. I don’t even think she’d be angry.”

**Just disappointed.**

Nissa shook her head. “She just wants to whisper. To talk and give advice. I almost think she’s fond of us.”

**You say that like you think fondness is beyond me.**

“I’ve seen the effects repeated whispers of madness can have,” Sorin returned, frowning. “Good people go murderous or worse under the duress of unending voices they can’t control.”

Nahiri glared at Sorin. “I don’t even hear her specific whispers anymore, just _when_ she whispers to Nissa.”

“And she doesn’t really whisper that quietly,” Nissa added, speaking at a whisper herself.

“You see how that’s still concerning though, yes?” Sorin raised a hand in frustration. “Two of the most powerful people on this plane and you both have one of the creatures that made ruin of it speaking to you. Telling you what to do.”

“It’s not so much telling as it is suggesting.” Nissa’s eyes traced the patterns of the carpets. “And suggesting in bad analogies mostly.”

“Suggesting is still a bad look,” Sorin said, frowning.

Nissa nodded, silently. Sorin started to stay something else, but seemed to think better of it and fell quiet.

“I don’t mean to set the terms of our reconciliation,” Nahiri said, after a moment. “But I need you to recognize that we’re acting of our own accord. I didn’t lose my autonomy when Emrakul started speaking in my head, and I trust that Nissa is strong enough that she didn’t either. Any mistakes we make are our own.” She was looking right at Sorin, their eyes locked on each other. “Responsibility. I need you to give me credit for what I do, bad, good, or otherwise, if this is going to work.”

“I know.” Sorin crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, and placed his hands awkwardly on his lap. “You are two of the strongest people I’ve met in more years of life than I can count. But I _will_ worry as long as we deal in Eldrazi. I promise to do my best to not let that ruin our efforts to help here, but...understand that I will remain concerned.”

“Sure,” Nahiri grumbled, running a hand through her hair. “I’m done talking about this tonight.” She looked at Nissa. “Did you make a decision about your girl yet?”

“Ah.” Nissa folded her hands in her lap. “N-nothing decisive right now. I’ve had some other things on my mind as well.”

“That’s fair,” Sorin said, leaning back against the tent pole. “We’ve been working nonstop for weeks.”

“Right. No rush, you know,” Nahiri added.

“I know.” Nissa smiled at the kor. “But thank you. I appreciate you both keeping me accountable for making a decision. Or thinking about it more than I would otherwise. I don’t think...that is, I don’t think anymore that I can’t be with her unless I’m...different. But there’s a place I want to be before I see her again, and I’m thankful to both of you for helping me get there.”

Nahiri nodded, but her frown deepened. She stood suddenly.

“I’m going to find something to drink.”

Sorin started to stand. “If you want to-”

Nahiri put a hand on his shoulder, and he froze.

“No.” She made what looked like an attempt at a smile, that made Nissa feel positively professional in her own face making. “Thank you, but no. I need to clear my head.”

Sorin nodded, slow, and sat back down. Nahiri was out of the tent before he or Nissa could think to say anything more, leaving them alone on the carpet.

“Did you want to talk,” Sorin asked, once Nahiri’s stomps had died away. “Or would you like the rest of the evening alone?”

Nissa pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. There was something very comfortable about the spacious tent, after nights of sleeping among eldrazi or in her cramped little travel tent. Her mind was still racing, but her heartbeat was slow. Even.

“If you have time?” She said, looking over her knees at the rug.

“Of course.”

Sorin stood and removed his jacket, folding it and placing it over a pillow. Then he sat again, leaning up against a support pole.

“You seem less restless these days,” Nissa said, glancing over at Sorin’s coat. He’d planeswalked away a day after the battle in Oran-rief and returned with his clothes in immaculate repair. How he’d done so, or where he’d found a set identical to his previous duster-and-armor combo, Nissa had not yet mustered the energy to ask.

“We’ve joined forces at a very strange time in my life.” Sorin tried sitting cross legged, made a grunt of discomfort, and crossed his legs in front of himself instead. “I guess I’m trying to work out where I fit in this new world.”

“I’m sorry about Innistrad. That it turned so hostile to you.”

“So am I,” Sorin muttered. His fist clenched a moment, then he relaxed it, and rapped his fingers against his leg. “But I have to trust it to take care of itself now.” he pursed his lips. “Still working on that. At the least, I trust Sigarda to give strong council to the humans.”

Nissa nodded at the carpet.

“They’re frustrating, humans.” Sorin mused. “They don’t ever seem to fully understand the danger they put themselves and others in, but I suppose that’s the sort of bravado you need to thrive when the planes are as dangerous as they are.”

“I do worry,” Nissa whispered. “Especially when they don’t even listen half the time.”

“Yes.” Sorin tapped his sword scabbard, which lay atop their folded-up trail tent. The sound filled the tent over the muffled backdrop of voices and activity in the caravan outside. “Is that a problem with Chandra?”

Nissa pursed her lips.

“If you’d rather not-”

“It’s fine. And it’s not. Not a concern, I mean.” Nissa looked down at her hands, stretching her fingers out. “The danger, the fighting. It was never a problem for me. Chandra’s headstrong, but she’s powerful enough that she can afford to be. It’s just...she’s not invincible. And the world has hurt her so much already. So much that I wondered if there could ever be enough of us around her to keep it from hurting her even more. When Bolas trapped us all on Ravnica...I feel almost as if I gave up. As if I conceded to the world that it would always have more to throw at her than I...than any of us could protect her from.”

Sorin nodded. Nissa glanced up towards his face. He was looking ahead, at the other side of the tent, lips pursed.

“I don’t know,” Nissa said at last. “I thought for a while it might be a relief not to worry about her being in danger, but now I just worry that I’m not there to help keep her safe, which is ridiculous because she’s more than able to keep herself safe.”

“It’s not ridiculous. That’s just how it is with precious things.” Sorin kept his gaze on the tent walls as he spoke. “But it...sounds like the fighting might have been a bit of a problem for you?”

“Maybe a bit.” Nissa rubbed her temples. The drones hummed continuously off at the edge of the field, restless as only creatures without true consciousness could be restless. An ocean away, hundreds of others bustled along predetermined routes, chirping clicking as they responded to stimulus from the zendikari overseeing their work. They were flowing through the motions of their own accord, almost completely autonomously, but their presence still left a tightness in Nissa’s mind that she found discomforting. She reached back and undid her braid, pulling the strands back until some of the tension eased.

“How much have you thought of her beyond the context of battle? If she’s someone you want to see more of, I’d think you’ll have more peaceful times together, with Ugin’s brother gone.”

“On and off.” Nissa sighed into her knees. “I was either thinking about her or exhausting myself trying _not_ to think about her all the time, and when I asked Emrakul to help me sleep easier, to get through my days without missing her...well it just made me even more unhappy than when I did have her in my thoughts.”

“Hm.”

“Sorry, I should have mentioned that before.”

Sorin shook his head. “I meant it when I said I trusted you to deal with Emrakul how you felt best. But...I appreciate the honesty.” His brow furrowed. “Was it really so painful that you didn’t want to think about her?”

“Not...painful? Just easier to not have to think about it. Letting her walk away was such a miserable mistake. I guess I just didn’t want to have to think about making that mistake every day for the rest of my life.”

“That bad of a regret?”

Nissa nodded. “More and more. I guess – I don’t think she was the solution to all my problems, but I miss her. I miss her more with every day that I don’t get to see her. Hear her voice.” She pulled her knees in closer. “I think part of why I didn’t argue with her when she came here to leave me was that...I thought that if I agreed with her, if I gave her what she wanted, that I’d see her smile again. Just...something to make her happy.”

Sorin didn’t respond for several seconds. When he did, his voice was as low as Nissa’s had been.

“You don’t have to justify that moment to yourself. Or me. I’m sure that you had plenty of feelings that motivated your response to her leaving, but you don’t have to justify a mistake, especially when you’re putting as much thought as you are into fixing it.”

Nissa nodded, and put her face down as tears started to well up in the corners of her eyes. “I guess the worst thing is...I felt relieved when she walked away? I’ve felt miserable about it ever since but there was a bit of relief, like I was waiting for the branch to break off and fall, and I didn’t have to worry once it did. Am I just supposed to ignore that relief?”

“I don’t know.” Sorin frowned. “It’s easy to push away things we want when we’re exhausted by the world. I think that’s true of a lot of different relationships. Familial. Romantic. Platonic. When...when Nahiri came after me the first time, I hadn’t seen her in centuries, and I’d exhausted myself preparing defenses for my own plane. There was a guilt over the distance I’d allowed to grow between us, and it was a guilt I was not looking forward to addressing, least of all with her, no matter how close we’d been. So when she finally showed up, angry and betrayed, it was easier to let the negative feelings escalate. I didn’t plan for it to go that way, but it felt right, at the time. Like the world was vindicating my confidence that I deserved to be punished.

“But, I don’t think that’s necessarily a good feeling to foster.” He added. “It’s self-destructive, and if a connection is important to us, we should push through the hard feelings instead of letting them drive us from the ones we love.”

Nissa nodded. Sniffed. “And if it hurts us more to be together?”

“That’s...an even harder choice to make. But, if once you’ve given one another a true and fair chance at being together, you do think the relationship is a harmful one, I have the utmost faith you’ll be strong enough to see that and draw away.”

“...yeah.”

Nissa stretched her legs out and rolled over on one side, facing Sorin. Leaned up against the tent pole he looked almost like the elven boys Nissa had grown up with, lounging in the branches after chores. He met her eyes for a split second, then looked away, nodding.

“Sorin?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I’m glad our paths crossed again.”

He nodded again, his eyes far away.

* * *

Nissa awoke the next morning with a sharp cramp in her shoulders. She emerged from the tent, massaging the back of her neck, to find Sorin watching the morning foot traffic.

“Did Nahiri come back last night?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Sorin glanced over at Nissa. “Bruse passed by earlier, though. He says he saw her last night. And this morning, apparently. You trust him?”

“Completely.” Nissa replied. “As does Tazri.”

Sorin nodded. “What’s the plan for today?”

“We figure out something to convince Tazri that the drones can be of use,” Nissa grumbled as she pinched the muscles around her shoulders.

“All right?”

“Slept badly. Too many rugs.”

“You’ve been sleeping on rocks and roots for weeks.”

“I’ve been sleeping on grass and moss where I can find it,” Nissa scowled back. “And lumpy rugs are still quite a shift from that. Just because you don’t rest...”

“I do rest. Sometimes.”

“Hmph.”

“There’s Nahiri.”

Nissa glanced uphill. Nahiri was striding down the slope, whistling and stomping through the grass. She was bare to the waist, with her tunic slung over her shoulder.

“Morning!” She said, brightly. “How did you sleep?”

“Neck ache,” Sorin said, nodding his head sidelong at Nissa.

“I just need to set my cot up tonight,” Nissa grumbled.

“New pillow couldn’t hurt either,” Nahiri said, peeking inside their tent. “Do we have time to poke around the market?”

“A little time.”

“Good.” Nahiri, pulled her tunic on, and started lacing it up as they wound together through the makeshift streets of canvas and grass. “I’ll fix up your braid while we’re at it.”

The market was a riot of noise, scents, and people. Kor, human, elf, goblin, merfolk, vampire, minotaur, and ogre wandered among stalls, baskets and sacks full of food and sundries. Giant beasts of burden loomed everywhere, some sleeping, some moving goods, and some, like the stonework pumas, made into part of the construction of the stalls themselves.

Nahiri led them in a whirlwind from stall to stall. She lingered briefly at each, feeling lemons for ripeness at one, needling a vendor over fabric quality as they perused pillows at another. After payment at each stall, which Nahiri counted out by feel, she sped off, beelining to the next stall regardless of the crowd or distance between them. Sorin and Nissa followed along in her wake. She seemed, best as Nissa could tell, much cheerier than the night before, and that Nahiri moved so efficiently through the marketplace helped Nissa bear with the crowds.

“Here.” Nahiri spun around from the latest stall, pitching two objects at Sorin and Nissa. Nissa snatched one with both hands an inch in front of her face.

It was a small guava, coated in chocolate and honey. Nissa bit into it. Sweet and tart. Sorin just stared at his own object; a small ceramic pot.

“Salve. It smells nice,” Nahiri said, already turned back to picking through the preserves and jars on the stall in front of her. “And it helps with the sun. We should get one for Bruse too.”

“Bruse?” Nissa asked.

“He peels in the sun,” Sorin said, tucking the salve into his jacket.

“And gripes when you poke at it.” Nahiri plucked up another small pot, and sniffed at the seal. “How’s this?” She offered it to Sorin. He took it and gave it a quick sniff.

“Pleasant.”

Nahiri smirked, dropped two coins into the vendor’s basket, and stepped back into the sun. Nissa followed behind, licking the chocolate from her fingertips.

“Ah!” Nahiri pointed across a small stretch of open rock and grass toward a long a tent. Large holes in the canvas allowed chimneys to vent smoke through the top. “Forgers!”

A crew of kor stood under and outside the tent, stoking fires, hammering, and shaping tools. On the grass, two of the kor were working stone directly with their hands, the magic of lithomancy making the stone hot and pliable under their gloved fingers. A pile of round boulders was stacked next to them. Nahiri beckoned to the other two and trotted off across the grass.

“Ho there.” A short kor with braided hair met hailed them as they approached. She extended a hand. “Yarla and company. What can we make for you today?”

“What have you got?” Nahiri asked.

“Weapons, if you need them,” the forger replied, looking them over. She had a broad leather apron on, and several rough, round boulders were stacked on the ground just behind her. “Tools. Toys, even, if you’ve got little ones.”

“Hmmm,” A smirk bloomed and shrunk on Nahiri’s face. “Well one’s never too old for a toy. Actually, could you...” She leaned forward, and muttered something to the braided kor.

“Certainly, miss.” Yarla, but rubbed her gloved hands together and hefted one of the stones up off the ground. Once she had got it up to chest height, she let it go, and it hovered several feet of the ground, spinning in a slow rotation.

“Thank you.” Nahiri pressed a hand to the stone’s surface, and pulled down. It rotated faster, rolling in place. She gave it a sideways smack, and the roll became erratic.

“Careful miss,” the Yarla took a step back, eyebrow raised. “You’ll have trouble forging if you keep it moving like that.

“I’m used to working with a roiling sphere,” Nahiri said, with a teeth-bared grin. She placed a hand on either side of the stone, inches from the spinning surface, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

The flow of mana was immediate and obvious, though you wouldn’t have known to look at it by sight alone. Nissa struggled to track the intricate twists of white-hot mana that Nahiri was directing with every twitch of her fingers.

Sorin watched nonplussed, but the other stoneforgers were obviously tuned to the flow of mana as well. They set down their work and scrambled to their feet to watch. Nahiri’s control was extraordinary. Except for the slight ripples in the air around the super-heated rock, you couldn’t have guessed at its temperature.

Just as the core grew so hot it felt like it might burst. Nahiri clapped a hand to either side of the rough-hewn stone and brought it to an abrupt halt.

The kor around her exhaled, and Nissa realized belatedly that she had released her own breath along with them.

Nahiri’s fingers flexed, and a crack ripped the stone along its meridian. She pulled her hands outward. The halves peeled away, still trailing strands of molten rock, wicking away from the creation within.

A bat.

A real bat, Nissa thought for the briefest moment. Rock didn’t have hair as detailed as that. Rock didn’t look like it might fly off at any moment.

Yarla whistled, and bent in close to inspect the sculpture, heedless of the smoke still trailing off of it. Nahiri twitched her pointer finger, and the bat started to revolve in a slow circle, showing off the detail. The stone in the wings was pressed so thin that the sunlight could be seen through it. The other stoneforgers murmured excitedly, looking it over and pointing at the details. Nahiri gave them a few seconds to appraise it before plucking the bat out of the air and tossing it to Sorin

“Show-off,” Sorin said, a thin smile on his lips. He took the bat, turning it over in his hands.

“Not bad.” Yarla rubbed her chin as she looked over the stone animal. “You looking for work, miss? Never enough hands these days.”

“My time is spoken for right now,” Nahiri said, grinning, “But I’m glad to hear there’s no shortage to patrons of the stoneforging arts.”

“Patrons we have, thought it feels like we spend all our days chasing the caravan of late.” Yarla pointed back at the tent. “And with everyone on the move, business started slowing down once folk hit the capacity for what they can carry with them.” She shrugged. “But we manage.”

“The sooner settled the better?” Nahiri asked.

“Better and trickier. We might see more caravans if we settle down, but who knows how often.” Yarla shrugged. “We’ll manage that too, when the time comes. Another challenge for another day.”

“Do they know who you are?” Sorin asked Nahiri as they walked away from the tent. He was still turning the bat over in his hands.

Nahiri shook her head. “I haven’t been a teacher on Zendikar in a long time. I’m just another stoneforger these days. Well, another very good stoneforger.”

“Ah.” Sorin looked up, then at Nahiri. “Am I sorry to hear it?”

“It’s...fine. You can see they’ve kept up the tradition without me.” She threw another longing look over her shoulder. “I’m glad. They can be the builders they always should have been now.”

“The general ought to be using them. Using you, if you wanted it.” Sorin followed her gaze back to the tent. “With the roil subsided...”

Nahiri nodded. “Yes, we could build more permanent homes. Let the zendikari settle into their own world.” She cast a sidelong eye at Sorin, who was spinning the bat between his hands now, a finger on the tip of each wing. “Careful with that. It could break if you drop it on the rock.”

Sorin stopped the sculpture spinning with a thumb, and considered it.

“I’ll take it back to the tent. The basket too, if we’re done.” He held out a hand. “And meet you both in the fields?”

“Here, take the food.” Nahiri bundled up the provisions in a cloth and handed them over. “I have a few more things I want to buy. And I want to talk with Nissa.”

“Oh?” Sorin took the bundle.

“Well...I wanted to say I’m sorry about last night,” Nahiri said, shouldering through a group of elves making conversation in the middle of the aisle. “I shouldn’t have stormed off the way I did.”

“Oh.” Nissa blinked. “that’s...absolutely fine? If you needed the time away we don’t begrudge you that. I do it all the time, when I can.”

“Yes, but still. I shouldn’t have brought up your girl and then left.”

“I appreciate the apology,” Nissa said. “But please, don’t worry about it. I had a very good talk with Sorin, actually.”

“Ah.” Nahiri looked over at Sorin. “That’s good. You’re surprisingly full of wisdom for someone who hasn’t had a romantic entanglement in centuries.”

Sorin started to cross his arms, then seemed to realize both his hands were full.

“I’ve had...entanglements more recently than that, I’ll have you know. And plenty of experience over the years to advise Nissa on how to proceed with her lover.”

Nahiri stopped in her tracks and made a hacking sound. Her face reminded Nissa of Liliana’s when she was trying not to laugh.

“I’m sorry, grandpa, but did you just actually use the word ‘lover?’”

“People still say ‘lover,” Sorin grumbled. “And you’re probably the next oldest person on this plane after me.”

“I-I don’t think you could call me and Chandra that anyways.” Nissa held her hands up to her chest, feeling suddenly flustered. “I mean, I appreciate the thought but I still haven’t talked to her and-”

“Go drop the food off, old man,” Nahiri said, practically giggling through her words. “We’ll see you in a bit.”

Sorin scowled and marched away, though Nissa noted he still took care to keep the stone bat in front of him, where no-one would jostle it.

“Ah.” Nahiri shook her head, shoulders shaking. “I-m...sorry about that too. I shouldn’t agitate him like that.”

Nissa nodded. Her cheeks felt warm. “It’s well-natured enough, I suppose. He really was helpful, though. Um...thinking my feelings through is good, but I feel like if I don’t say them to someone, they just stew in my brain.”

**Very fortunate you have a helpful voice in your brain to talk things over with.**

“Hm.” Nahiri looked up, lips pursed. “Does...Emrakul ever chime in on these things?”

“Fairly often. She thinks I should go after Chandra.”

“Well, I guess even a monster can be right sometimes.”

**Hmph.**

Nissa shrugged. “She’s….good for bouncing some ideas off of. Not exactly down to earth.”

Nahiri nodded. “But you’re thinking of going to find her?”

“More and more.” Nissa sidestepped an ox-pulled cart full of thread spools and yarn. “I’m...feeling more confident about what I want. I just worry about what I’ll find when I see Chandra.”

“You mean what she’ll want?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fair. But that’s why you’re going to talk to her, right?”

“Yeah.” Nissa gripped her staff with both hands. “I know she cares about me. I know...I’m certain that she wanted a closer relationship with me before, but...feelings change, right?”

“They do.” Nahiri stopped at a stall selling dried meats. The Vendor had nodded off in her chair, and was snoring loudly. “Yours did, it sounds like. They got stronger, I mean.” Nahiri started a pile of strips, picking meat from the heaped baskets. “How do you think her feelings might have changed?”

“She just seemed...lifeless? Last time we spoke?” Nissa sighed. “Like the passion had gone out of her. And before that, it felt like she was forcing herself to show affection. And I didn’t know how to respond to that.”

“Energy runs out. Even hotheads burn out from time to time.”

“Does...does it ever come back?”

Nahiri pursed her lips, placing the meat in the basket and throwing a coin into the vendor’s lap. The woman continued to snore, unabated. “Sometimes. Usually, I think? Things like what happened on Ravnica...they can change people in ways most don’t even think about. I don’t want to discourage you at all, but when you go, you do need to be ready for the possibility that…maybe _she_ isn’t ready for a relationship.”

Nissa nodded. Her gaze dropped to the grass.

“B-but I mean, maybe not!” Nahiri started to put a hand on Nissa’s shoulder, then drew it back. “I’m rooting for you all the way. And no matter what, I do think you need to tell her how you feel. However she responds is how she responds, and as long as you’re respectful of that, I mean...I don’t think you should have any regrets, so-”

Nissa let her staff drop as she threw her arms around Nahiri.

“Oh! Um, are you-”

“S-sorry!” Nissa jumped back, flushing again. “I wanted to say thank you for your help and the encouragement and I...sorry, I should have asked first-”

“No, no!” Nahiri set the basket down. “Um...anytime, really. I’m happy to help.”

“It’s just...” Nissa bent and picked her staff up, wringing her hands around the shaft. “I don’t really talk about this kind of thing, and you both have been-”

“2 coins for a dozen.”

Nissa and Nahiri spun around. The vendor was awake, stretching out her arms and yawning.

“Um, sorry?” Nahiri said.

“2 coins.” the vendor nodded at the basket, and tapped the coin in her lap.

“Oh, right!” Nahiri fumbled in her pocket for another coin and tossed it to the woman. Then she and Nissa scampered away from the stall.

When they had made it to the nearest clearing of tents, they both doubled over, laughing.

“We-we almost robbed her, huh?” Nissa felt half-mortified, but her chest was feeling suddenly lighter as well.

“Basically.” Nahiri sighed, holding her own chest. She poked at the meat in the basket. “A bit much for low-quality meat, really, I-”

She cut off, looking over Nissa’s shoulder. Nissa turned. They were back withing a stone’s throw of the forger’s tent. They were hard at work again, though only one or two people where actually looking at their wares.

“We could propose bringing them in to help with the refugee population to Tazri this evening,” Nissa ventured. “Perhaps ask how interested they are in helping build homes for the refugees?”

Nissa watched Nahiri carefully. The lingering smile on her face flickered just a bit – growing larger?

“Yeah, she should know.” Nahiri handed the basket, with the rest of their supplies, to Nissa. “Tell you what, I’ll go speak with them. I’ll find you after for supper. Tell Bruse I said hello.”

“Right. Nissa took the basket. “Um, and Nahiri?”

“Hm?”

“I meant it. Thank you.” Nissa extended an arm to her friend. The half-hug was awkward with her hands full, but it felt right.

* * *

It was about midday when Sorin and Nissa finally made their way back out to the fields to inspect the drones. They had followed the caravan faithfully under Nissa’s instruction, keeping several miles out from the main body. Nissa had also directed them to scoop out a small trench to huddle themselves in, lest they spook the herds that might catch a glimpse of them.

**A waste to let them perish unused, don’t you think?**

“Maybe,” Nissa whispered. Sorin could hear her, she knew, and knew who she was talking to, but it still felt strange to speak at full volume to a voice in her head. “Not exactly a tragedy, though. I’ll accept waste if it’s what Zendikar wants. If these are what are wasted.”

“Tell that thing if it wants the spawn safe so badly, she should come and get them herself.” Sorin’s arms were tightly folded, now that he had nothing to hold on to.

**Tell the sealer that he’s not one to talk about failing those within their domain.**

“You can both keep your comments to yourselves,” Nissa said, at _slightly_ louder than a whisper.

“What will we do with them, then?”

**What will you do with them, then?**

Nissa grimaced. “March them into a volcano? Take them to Tazeem or Seijiru? I don’t know yet. I feel...responsible for them now. I know I don’t have to, but it’s how I feel.”

Sorin nodded. “There are still plenty of empty places on Zendikar to put them to work.”

“There are. But hopefully not forever. I want to find a way to integrate them into a recovering Zendikar, not just nestled in the wounds.” Nissa knelt at the edge of the trench. The inside was lined with a thin coat of desiccation, but it was a mere dusting. The eldrazi draining capacities were indeed much reduced.

**There is no more stomach to feed,** Emrakul had explained when Nissa first realized the change in their effect on the world. **And so they digest more slowly.**

“I thought that Kozilek and Ulamog were more akin to brains,” Nissa had replied.

**Brains, stomachs, nerves, lungs. These are imperfect metaphors. Understand that some things are not as neatly analogous as the common mind might want them to be.**

Nissa reached into trench and ran her thumb along the white dust. It came off in a layer a fraction of a centimeter deep, revealing the rich volcanic soil underneath-

“Gluttonous oaf! Not enough to nip at my ears, is it? Now you want my meals as well?”

Sorin and Nissa turned. Further below them, Bruse had come into view, trying and failing to wrestle a loaf of bread out of an Ox’s mouth.

“Bruse!” Nissa waved from the slope. She held up the small basket of food Nahiri had separated out from their purchases that morning.

“Hmph!” Bruse let the rest of his bread go, and it disappeared quickly into the ox’s maw. “Eating. At least there’s _one_ thing you do quickly, brute.” To Sorin and Nissa he gave a smile. “Good afternoon, my lovely friends! Is Nahiri not with you today? All tuckered out?”

“She’s at market still; we spent the morning and she thought to look into options for the refugees.”

“We also found this.” Sorin reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a small sealed ceramic pot. “A salve for your sunburns.”

“Ha!” Bruse took the pot, his thick fingers deftly plucking it from Sorin’s palm. “You remembered. Very kind of you both.” He clapped his arm across Sorin’s shoulders while he inspected the pot. He flipped the lib off with his thumb and sniffed the substance within.

“Aaaaah, pine and berries. There’s a smell that’s good for the soul.” He proffered the pot to Sorin. “What do you make of that?”

Sorin dipped his head to the pot and took a long sniff.

“Very pleasant.”

BOOM

The noise hit Nissa like a thunder-clap, and she fell instinctively into a defensive crouch, her staff was in front of her, and she’d drawn her sword as she went down.

“All good, all good!” Bruse waved his free hand. He was cradling Sorin in his other arm, keeping the vampire from toppling over. It looked like Sorin had been just as startled by the explosion, and tripped over a rock. His own arm lay against Bruse’s, and his hand grasped the herder’s upper arm tight enough to sink into the muscle there. “Just an eruption, I think, and quite a distance away!”

Nissa fell into a cross-legged sit, and exhaled. She touched Zendikar's leylines. The red veins of Akoum were erratic just then, pumping magma towards a distant peak like blood to an open wound. She could feel the heat in it. The melted rock, full of metals and minerals and-

Ore. In liquid form, ready to be molded. Ready to be shaped. And all of it flowing freely from the mountains...

“Nissa?”

Nissa looked up. Bruse and Sorin were staring at her.

“What is it?”

“I think I have an idea,” Nissa said. “For how to use the eldrazi here. But I’ll need help. And Tazri’s approval, I think. Especially after last night.”

“We could bring Tazri down here, whatever you’ve got in mind,” Sorin offered. “And the other caravan leaders. Bruse acclimated to the eldrazi quickly enough. Perhaps a bit of time around them in their docile state will convince her to bring them closer.”

Bruse shook his head. “The general is more cautious than you think, and I would not look to convince the Goma Fada to accept. We have too many to look after.” He rose from his crouch, patting his back. “But it’s a good idea to bring Tazri here. It looks like the eldrazi are here to stay, at least for longer than we predicted. Better we get used to the idea of them being _somewhere_.”

“Well,” Nissa rose from her crouch. “What I’m thinking will involve the eldrazi crossing the caravan’s path, more likely than not, but it should keep them out of your way most of the time, and help you shed the refugees. Settle them elsewhere on the continent.”

“That sounds promising.” Bruse patted Sorin on the shoulder, and the vampire seemed to realize he was still in the crook of the herder’s arm. He righted himself quickly, dusting off his shoulders. “‘Elsewhere’ where, exactly?”

“The mountains. Mostly the mountains. What I have in mind has them moving all over, but hopefully not along any current trail used by the locals.”

Bruse nodded, stroking his chin. “But intersecting, perhaps? For the sake of argument.”

“Intersecting, yes. It’s not – I’m not removing them entirely, but I think I have a good compromise in mind. I just need to speak to a few people. I don’t want to force them on anyone,” Nissa added, “I meant it when said I’d rid the continent of them if I have to, I just...”

“I know.” Bruse prodded a with a stick. “Why waste a resource? Even a resource as ugly as you are, little imp.” He poked a particularly gnarled spawn of Kozilek in its eye. It did not lash out, but spun on its three legs in a quick circle, squealing in a way to make the air ripple. Bruse rolled backward, swearing, and came to his feet with a deft backwards roll.

“Still a few surprises in these rascals,” he grunted, dusting off his shoulders. He winced as he smacked his sunburn with an overly vigorous pat. “Bah, that stings. Dear Sorin, bring us that lotion, would you?”

* * *

Nissa and Sorin had arrived late to supper, having scouted out the ground ahead for the next migration of the spawn. They found the ring had already dispersed except for Nahiri and Tazri, who were arguing with voices raised.

“We can’t go ripping up the mountains for ore,” Tazri snapped, visibly irate. “Especially not enough to build homes on the scale we’d need to re-settle these people _and_ leave them to their own devices. Goma Fada’s just one of dozens of nomadic caravans now, and between all of them we have several cities worth of refugees to re-settle.”

“You said yourself when we arrived that you wanted to begin construction on homes.” Nahiri’s own supper lay untouched by her side. “These forgers are ready and willing to do just that!”

“And I’m grateful for that, but they’ll have to wait. Wait until we have the resources and the skilled hands to help them. One small group of stoneforgers, however skilled, won’t save an entire continent.”

“Let us try at least!” Nahiri replied, voice hot. “Those of us who know lithomancy know what the mountains can take. We can start with the floating masses, even. There’s probably much less risk of tectonic instability-”

“‘Probably’ does not give me any confidence,” Tazri interrupted. “And even if it did, where would you get the labor to move the ore where it needs to go? Is a small shop of Kor going to move mountains on their own?”

“I think I may have an answer to that,” Nissa interjected. “Something that we _would_ want your help establishing. Something that I think will benefit quite a lot of the zendikari.”

“You think?” Tazri scowled, but her voice was no longer raised. “What do you mean?”

“We’re talking with people now,” Sorin said. “Nissa has a good plan. One that we’re looking to gather contributors for.”

“Willing contributors,” Nissa added. “I...I don’t want to put anything forward at this point, but I would like some of your time tomorrow afternoon. Once we’ve had a chance to verify with collaborators. To include whatever stoneforgers or stone-workers are able.” Nissa looked to Nahiri, and made what she hoped was a comforting face.

“That’s something. Or it might be.” Tazri set her supper aside. “Fine. Cook up a decent plan for me and you have my support. Until then,” she turned her glare on Nahiri. “Don’t come to me with half-baked ideas.”

“She _is_ trying to help,” Nissa offered, quietly, after Nahiri had stormed off, and Sorin had gone after to check on her. “I don’t think it does any good for anyone to get so cross at her for trying.”

“No, I suppose not,” Tazri conceded, frowning. “It’s just...I have trouble with you ‘walkers, still. All your power and you seem to think solving every problem you come up against is as simple as applying power until the problem goes away. Not everything in life is so easy. Life is harder than that.”

“It is.” Nissa settled on the grass, next to Tazri. “I suppose I just wish we didn’t have to be so with each other.”

Tazri grunted, nodding. “That would be nice wouldn’t it?”

They sat in silence, watching the sun set over the hills. Somewhere off on the eastern edge of the caravan, singing and the sound of instruments added a soft backdrop to the coming dusk. Nissa lay back on the ground, relishing the soft touch of the grass on her neck.

“Have you been well, since we ended the titans?” Nissa turned her head to look at Tazri’s back. “I know you’ve been busy, but other than that?”

“As well as anyone, I guess.” Tazri moved her head from side to side slowly. Her neck cracked audibly. “Though it feels like busy is all I am these days. I’ve been moving continent to continent the last few months since Sea Gate. It’s the same all over; slow recovery bedeviled by spawn, bandits, and shortages. We’ve spread ourselves thinner than I would like. I was at Bala Ged before this. The ruins are a battlefield now, the older eldrazi in full-out conflict with Yarok and….whatever it is that Yarok has been spawning all over the place.” She glanced down at Nissa. “I don’t suppose you’d mind trying your hand with wrangling them as well?”

“Not at all.”

“Mm.” Tazri stared back up at the sky. “Other than that...making treaties with the vampires, restoring what we can of the Zulaport docks. Completely failing to displace that blasted ogre extortionist Kazuul from his cliffs...this is the closest thing to a rest I’ve had in a while. There’s plenty that needs seeing to, but the Goma Fada has weathered the eldrazi better than most. They need the least help so far.” She laughed. “And have the best brew.”

Nissa snickered at that. “A lot of small things about Zendikar that make it worth saving.”

“Yes.” Tazri’s face softened. “It’s an honor to have everyone’s trust in doing the saving.”

Another silence fell. Emrakul said nothing, but her attention on Nissa’s next actions was tangible. Nissa frowned up at the sky. It was just a conversation, and she was doing fine so far. Wasn’t that enough?

She looked back at Tazri. The sunset glowed around her head, a halo to replace the one she typically bore on her armor. Tazri was smiling, but her shoulders were slumped. Nissa leaned up on her elbow to look at the general sidelong.

She _was_ tired. She was tired and that fact stung at Nissa’s chest.

“It...looks like you’ve helped a lot here. Helping the Goma Fada keep moving. Bringing supplies for all the refugees.”

Now it was Tazri who lay back on the ground, stretching her hands behind her head. “I’m sure they would have all found a way themselves. I’m happy to facilitate. I don’t think it’s one person that saves the world, but a lot of us working and caring together.”

“That’s true.” Nissa ran one hand over the other, focusing on the sound of fabric running on fabric. “I don’t think that makes your role in the saving any less important.”

Tazri looked up at Nissa, smile still on her face, but eyebrows raised and scrunched. Confusion? Then clarify.

“You...you’ve done so much for us. For our plane.” Nissa pulled at the fingers of her glove. “And you’ve done it despite every adversity imaginable. I just want you to know how much that means to me. What it means to everyone.”

“Thank you.” Tazri’s brow uncreased. “It’s...you as well. No matter how critical I am of any of you, I’m so proud of our world for coming together like it has. And, well, that means you as well.”

Nissa just nodded, smiling, eyes the sky.

The sun fell away behind the trees over the minutes that followed, its rays sinking slowly in its wake, leaving the sky pink, red, purple, and then the dusty blue of night. Nissa stayed next to Tazri, letting her own aches settle. The stars faded into sight, a few at a time, and then altogether.

“What about you,” Tazri asked after a while. “Anything as exciting as controlling eldrazi in your life?”

“Maybe.” Nissa’s cheeks flushed, unbidden. It felt like that was happening more often. “There’s um, a girl. I’m working up the right mind set to talk to her.”

“What happened to the redhead? The one that you toasted the titans with?”

“Ah, she’s the girl.”

“Oh. Hm.” Tazri stretched her arms out toward the sky, then let them fall at her sides. “Well you should go and talk to her. I figured you would have done that ages ago, the way you two were making eyes at each other back then.”

* * *

Nissa awoke the next morning with hunger scratching the walls of her stomach. She stumbled out of the tent, and quite nearly ran straight into Sorin.

“Nissa. Ah...good morning.”

“Good morning.” She looked him over. He was bare to the waist, and had his jacket and shirt over his shoulder in a bundle. “Did you go out earlier to do laundry?”

“Mm, just visiting with some of the caravan.” He looked around. “Um, have you seen Nahiri?”

“She’s still resting. I found her asleep when I came back from supper last evening.” Nissa sniffed the air. She could smell a dozen breakfasts cooking around her. “I was going to fetch something to eat and find Bruse to see the eldrazi.”

“Oh, he went to eat as well.”

“Ah, thank you. Could you come find us once-”

“Once she’s awake?” Sorin’s eyes flicked towards the tent.

“Yes.”

Nissa found a band of Kor children selling greens and herbs by the southern edge of the caravan. She traded a handful of shells from the Halimar basin for a paper bowl of fresh-washed cabbage and onions, then wandered downstream, looking for the Oxen.

She found Bruse watching his her from atop a boulder, shoveling down slices of buttered flatbread and honey. He seemed more tired than usual, and a bandage was pasted down along the base of his neck.

“Are you alright?” Nissa took a seat next to him on the rock, setting her bowl of greens in her lap.

“Hmm?” He looked up, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. Nissa pointed to the bandage.

“Ah. Nothing to worry about. A few nights of rough rest is all.” He chuckled and tore off a corner of bread with his teeth. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough.” Nissa lifted a leaf of lettuce and two small green onions out of the bowl. “Though the crowds are challenging.” She popped the food between her lips. The onion was sweet and sharp, and chased away the last of her sleepiness.

“Challenging, that is apt.” Bruse snorted. “People are wonderful, but the sometimes soul needs solitude to thrive. I thank the gods my father was a herder, that my calling brings me time among the oxen each day.”

Nissa smirked. “Even with all their stubbornness?”

“Even so. I love these blasted silly beasts. We make for odd company to the outside eye, I know, but we suit each other very well.”

Nissa looked sidelong at Bruse. “When we first met, I thought...well, I never would have guessed you don’t like being around people. It seems to come to you very naturally. Intercourse, that is”

“Ah, the distance is what helps me be agreeable,” Bruse sighed. He licked a smear of honey off his thumb. “I’d be a dreadful grump if I didn’t get my time out in the fields every day. But you do miss people after a while.”

“Hm.” Nissa considered another handful of onions. “It’s an agreeable pace of life.”

“Mm.” Bruse just smiled and tore off another piece of flatbread. Nissa munched her salad. They ate together in silence, watching the clouds drift across the rising sun.

“Oh! So!” Bruse’s face lit up suddenly. “Nahiri tells me you have a lady in your life! Why have I not heard of this?”

“Oh? Oh.” Nissa looked down at her empty bowl, her cheeks growing warm. “Well, not _in_ my life right now, but she was, and um...well hopefully again, soon.”

Bruse nodded. “Hm, yes, complicated. She said that as well. What is she like, this lady of yours?”

“Hot,” Nissa blurted out. “Um, that is, she does fire magic, you see, so...you know.”

Bruse nodded.

“She’s a very warm person. Friendly. Stubborn. I think you’d like her.”

“Yes, yes, but why do _you_ like her?”

“I suppose...I like the way she makes me feel. She’s kind and loving and fierce and...I’m happier when I’m with her. She makes me feel safe.” Nissa looked up over the fields, toward the sun over the distant trees. “She makes me feel loved.”

“Safe and loved are good,” Bruse smiled. He looked over his shoulder. “Ah! Good morning, dear Nahiri! Sweet Sorin!”

Nahiri was ambling along the river towards them, still yawning, a half-eaten fruit in her hand. Sorin strode alongside her, matching pace.

“Morn’” Nahiri collapsed on the strode up the low slop of the boulder and collapsed on the rock next to them. Her teeth sank into the fruit. “Wha’s the plan fr today?”

Nissa grinned. “Are you still interested in organizing the stoneforgers?”

“Very much.” Nahiri popped the last of the fruit into her mouth. “Ish thish to do wit’ the plan you wer talkin’ ‘bout?”

“It is. I’ve been letting the details simmer in my mind, but I envision this:” Nissa took out the last few scraps of lettuce from her bowl and began arranging them on the rock. “We have the eldrazi in Tazeem running trails from the quarries to the forests. Akoum has no quarries, as of right now, and the locals are reluctant to begin stripping the mountains, but it does have another source of building material in abundance.” Nissa looked up and pointed to the mountains, to the further peaks dripping with glowing streams.

Sorin responded first. “The lava?”

Nissa nodded. “Yes. Nahiri, you work the rock into a molten state, how much easier would it be if the other stoneforgers were able to craft with direct access to the mountains? Could they create material on a scale needed to make building materials?”

Nahiri spit the fruit-pit out onto the grass. “It would be easier to sift the impurities. Easier to make a lightweight stone better suited to the land as well.” She started nodding, slowly. “Yes. If they prepare molds for whatever pieces they’d need to make they could probably churn out material even faster. And carry more from peak to...wherever, really. And then you’re thinking the eldrazi…?”

“Not everyone will want to start their lives anew in the heart of the mountains. Most won’t, I expect.” Nissa dragged her finger from one pile of leaves stacked into miniature hills to a hole in the boulder where water had pooled. “The eldrazi we’ve gathered, plus however many more we can gather on the continent, can move the loads to less volatile regions for construction. And with the right coordination we can ensure the caravans need not be bothered with them. At the least they’ll know where the routes are and can avoid them as needed.”

Bruse considered the bits of green. “Yes. That would be a great comfort.”

Nissa looked to Nahiri. She was staring down at the makeshift map as well, lips pursed. After a full minute, she nodded.

“It’s a good start.”

“Good; we have until this evening to present our case. Nahiri, I need you to speak with the stoneforgers. Find out how many other workers and lithomancers they’re aware of in the other caravans who might be interested in this project. Sorin, make rounds with Jermiz or Palana. Whichever you can find. Speak to the refugees looking to settle, and gauge how many would be comfortable with being the beneficiaries of this plan. I’m going to go find us guides, and then come back to prep the drones for Tazri’s inspection.”

“I guess I don’t see why we need her approval,” Nahiri said. “I mean...look, I’m not holding a grudge. I’m not,” she snapped, when Sorin raised an eyebrow. “But if we’re not messing with the Goma Fada, what’s she got to object to? Why’s she got to be involved?”

“Harmony,” Nissa said. “I want what we do with the eldrazi to be done with the approval of the people. Tazri’s blessing is the first step in that, and I trust her not to approve something that she doesn’t truly believe is for the best.” Nissa paused. “And to be honest, I don’t want us to be the sort of ‘walkers who act without asking.”

“...That’s fair.”

“I’ll take you to Jermiz.” Bruse stood and patted Sorin. “A bit of reassurance and he’ll be happy to help the Goma Fada shed tagalongs. Nissa, you will keep an eye on my beasts for a half-hour?”

“Of course.”

Bruse and Sorin hurried off. Nahiri watched them go with a slight frown.

* * *

Evening found a much larger crowd gathered by the boulder. The stoneforger crew was laughing and throwing dice on the grass in the rock’s shadow, along with several of the refugees Sorin had gathered. Other refugees, several dozen, eating, resting, or standing on the slope, watching the rows of Eldrazi standing further downhill. Nissa hoped their nervousness was at least partially abated by the band of children, led by Kavi, who danced around drones, poking and prodding.

“Take care with the tentacles there,” She called at one curious young elf, who was looking underneath a drone’s mouth. “Those can still damage your skin if you’re not careful.”

“Okay, Elf!” Kavi waved, and grabbed the younger elf by the hand, leading him in a run around the drones.

Nissa smiled. She had been happy to find Kavi’s father still watching his daughter by the tree-painted tent. He had jumped at the opportunity for work in the mountains, and at work that he could take Kavi along for. They had spent most of the early afternoon traversing the camp in haphazard loops, finding other goblins looking to return to the mountains. By the time they made it back out to the grazing fields, Nissa had recruited two dozen goblins, a minotaur mountaineer, and twin ogres who claimed to be the best navigators in all the continent.

Tazri’s face didn’t betray any sign of being impressed, when she arrived towards evening, but at least she wasn’t frowning.

Nissa inhaled, steadying herself.

**It’s a good plan. She’ll approve.**

“It’s quite a crowd,” Tazri announced, taking the spot next to Nissa atop the boulder. “What will they be doing?”

“These volunteers will be scouting routes the mountains,” Nissa pointed to the mixed group of guides all taking their supper in the grass. “Thalox, that minotaur there, already knows the routes up from before the emergence, Dag and her sister claim to have been up more recently, and familiarized themselves with the terrain the eldrazi have altered or destroyed. The rest are former natives, and can guide the eldrazi and our stoneforgers up the peaks.”

Tazri pursed her lips, scanning the crowd. “Alright. To what end?”

“That.” Nissa turned to face the mountains. Tazri followed her lead after a beat. The hot lava of Akoum's life blood lit up the far horizon. “The lava. The ore within. Ready in great supply and perfect to build the foundation along the coasts of Akoum.” Nissa gestured to the grass. “If you would?”

“Right.” Tazri was smiling now, just slightly. They walked down to the stoneforgers. Nahiri stood up from the dice and nodded in greeting.

“Yarla and her crew are prepared to harvest lava and assist in its transport to the coasts.”

“And what then?” Tazri asked.

“Building out, ma’am.” Yarla stood as well. She pointed to several upturned wooden pallets lying in the grass, strung with leather straps. “We’ve got molds for easily transportable blocks that these beasts here can move from the mountains to the seas. We can shape them from there; build out into the water. Up to the skies, if you like. Stable, strong foundations for folks to start their lives on.”

Sorin stepped forward. “And there are many zendikari looking to settle down. Many who don’t mind if the eldrazi build the homes they settle down in. These are just the few who could spare their time this evening. There are plenty more who we haven’t even spoken to yet.”

“Yes, you don’t have to tell me that there are a lot of us without homes.” Tazri’s eyes traced over the assembled crowd, some milling about watching her, some taking their meals a distance from the eldrazi, some watching over the children, who were still playing around and among the silent eldrazi drones. “So that’s your solution? Use the drones as pack animals?”

“Yes.” Nissa stood tall, resisting the temptation to lean on her staff. “They’re strong, and they can navigate the terrain. They’ll follow orders, and they do not tire. We can establish routes that take them well clear of the caravans. Tazri, this is a problem they are perfectly suited to solve.”

Tazri regarded the assembly.

“Are you all at peace with this?” She called, turning the heads that had not already been paying attention. “Your homes built by the things that made you refugees?”

The crowd exchanged looks. A few shrugged. One older human spat at the feet of the drones, but said nothing.

“They might as well do _something_ useful for us,” A young kor ventured, looking at the eldrazi with arms crossed. A few murmurs followed his declaration, and a few scattered nods. Lukewarm, but better than Nissa had any good reason to hope for.

She pressed the point. “We have workers who could help build whole villages. Cities, if we can gather the masons and lithomancers scattered across Akoum, those traveling with other caravans.” She nodded at Yarla, who smiled in the affirmative. “We have zendikari looking to return to their homelands, and in need of a steady work to support their re-settling.”

“I’m convinced as far as the people are concerned,” Tazri turned to the drones, and strode toward them, past the gathered crowd. Every face tracked her. Nissa met eyes briefly with Yarla and Kavi’s father, and went after Tazri. Mercifully, the other two came as well.

Tazri stopped within arm’s length of a spawn, one of Kozilek’s many eyed, stone-crowned creatures. “What happens when you leave?”

Nissa reached out a hand, the the eldrazi responded in kind, hovering its ragged appendage over her palm. “I’ve tried moving to other planes, and they continue to act according to the new directives I’ve filled them with. They are extensions of Zendikar now, through me. Where they served as hands of the titans, now their lines are connected to our world.”

“I...see.” Tazri clasped her hands behind her back. “And when you’re _gone_ gone?”

“I hope by then I’ve taught enough zendikari how to manage the drones. It’s not constant control I exert over them, just an awareness. They an entirely new nature now. New habits. I can’t change what they are, but I have changed what drives them.”

“And their effect on the land?” Tazri’s hands unclasped and she stooped to inspect the eldrazis’ feet, or whatever approximation of feet the ones in the vicinity had. A slight dusting of white powder had built up around them, but is was less than a light frost’s work.

“Significantly reduced, and more so when they’re on the move. As long as we have designated places to keep them at rest...”

“Right.” Tazri stood, and exhaled. Her head cocked to look at Yarla“ And you would work with them?”

“Can’t be much more dangerous than the mountains, the way they are now,” Yarla shrugged. She’d inched to within a few feet of the eldrazi, and had squatted down to get a look at the underside on one.

“And you?” Tazri asked, addressing Kavi’s father. “Do you mind these creatures going up into the mountains you’d call home?”

Kavi’s father laughed.

“Mountain’s full of nasty beasties. These ones follow orders, at least.”

Tazri pulled in in a slow breath, face expressionless as her chest swelled slowly. On the exhale she closed her eyes, and cocked her head.

“The good people of Akoum have spoken, I suppose. If you’ve got the hands brave enough to make the journey up to the summit, you’ll have your chance. I want you to show me what you can all do as a team. If I like what I see, then you have my full support.”

Nahiri grinned, showing teeth. “When can you be ready?” she asked Yarla.

“We can be on our way up the mountains today, if it means more work.” Yarla leaned in, almost close enough to touch the closest drone. “By the plains, these things look strange up close.”

“Tomorrow. Then we’ll see what sort of new Zendikar you’re all ready to build.” Tazri gave a short nod to everyone assembled, and a small cheer went up.

“You.” Tazri tapped Nissa’s staff as the crowd disperse to return to their tents, or prepare for the journey. “A word.” She pointed toward the rows of eldrazi and strode off among them. Nissa followed close behind. Several of the departing zendikari watched them enter the midst of the drones, and nodded their approval.

**This one is good at raising confidences as well.**

Tazri said nothing for several steps, just inspecting the drones, stopping for a beat at each one with a body type or shape that she had not yet passed.

Finally she came to a stop in the center of the eldrazi. Nissa stood at her side as Tazri turned a slow circle.

“Why is it so important to you that we use them?” Tazri asked at last. “I’m not doing this because it matters to you, but I _would_ like to know why you’re pushing this.”

“They’re here,” Nissa said. “They don’t mean us any harm or malice. And I guess...I guess at some point I’ve gotten tired of the fighting change. Zendikar's always evolving, and the spawn are...well, just another sort of change. If there’s even a chance of coexistence, I think it’s worth the effort to attain it.”

“Well said. Gideon rubbed off on you for the talking.” Tazri took another look around at the drone, and sighed. “If they prove themselves in the mountains I suppose we might at least have a tool for finally driving Kazuul out of Murasa. There’s one brute I’ve no interest in coexisting with, no matter how peaceful the plane gets.”

* * *

Nissa woke two days later in a smaller tent, on her old cot, the rocky soil of Akoum’s foothills beneath her feet as she rolled out to greet the early morning. It was still dark out, but she wanted to snatch a few minutes of meditation before the others awoke.

Or at least before they were _supposed_ to awake. Nissa could hear low voices arguing outside as she made for the tent flap.

“...a bite mark, very classy. Did you rub lotion on that for him too?”

“None of your business.” Sorin’s tone was flat and clipped. “He was perfectly agreeable to it, and you don’t see _me_ asking-”

“No! You didn’t ask at all, did you? Even when it was perfectly obvious that I-”

“Is there a problem?” Nissa pulled the flap aside and fixed her companions with as stern a look as she could muster. Her irritation helped.

They both nearly jumped out of their boots. Sorin crossed his arms and looked away, while Nahiri looked about as close to blushing as Nissa had ever seen the pale Kor get.

“This isn’t the place to quarrel,” Nissa said, letting her gaze drop. She looked sidelong down either side of the expedition party’s camp, but save for the sentry, everyone else was still asleep, or at least in their tents. They had crossed a long distance into the mountains the day prior, and they surely needed all the rest they could get. “You’ll wake everyone. Do we need to talk?”

“No, it’s...” Nahiri bit her lip. “It’s really not much, just, uh...”

“Nothing worth arguing about,” Sorin finished, quickly. He turned to Nahiri. “It was selfish of me to act without speaking with you. I hope-”

“I didn’t say anything either,” Nahiri interrupted. “Or the night before, and I knew you were interested too. I shouldn’t have made that comment about-”

“It had nothing to do with that. I would never spite you.” Sorin spread his hands. “I had a moment of...well, we’d been talking and-”

Nahiri looked at her feet. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Still, I should have-”

“No, no, it’s fine! Nahiri smirked, looking slightly less abashed. “Um...I guess it’s just weird to see this side of you.”

Nissa could only nod as she left them to finish whatever conversation they were having in quieter, more civil tones. It _was_ still jarring to hear Sorin apologize.

Jarring, but pleasant.

The air this close to the mountains was a pleasant mix of cool breeze rippled with warm updrafts that flowed over the slopes. The ground was loose and full of pebbles, but there was something pleasant in the crunch it made with every step. Nissa made brisk work of the hike to the nearest peak, and settled onto the ground.

For a long while she just closed her eyes and listened to the hum and heat of the mountains’ leylines.

**Not much time for your meditations in the past few days.**

“And the wrong conditions to start again now,” Nissa sighed, opening her eyes. The darkness of morning was giving away to a rising light on the horizon, and the very faint lights of their camp glittered below on the rocky slopes. The drones stood in stillness further down, like aphids bunched together on a broad leaf. A pile of pallets, molds, and crude-stone crucibles, hastily but expertly prepared by the stoneforgers, lay in neat stacks between the eldrazi and the zendikari.

**Yes, many distractions. Ensure you are taking the greatest care of the weaker parts of your flesh so as to not grow weary. Though in a way, having so many things to focus on is good practice.**

“Practice for what?”

**For protecting what is most important to you in the worlds. You will find the number of things dear to you fluctuates with the passage of ‘time.’ To safeguard them all at once is no small matter.**

“No time to rest,” Nissa said, trying to convey the mental equivalent of a nod.

**Always time to rest, mover. Imperative to make time to rest, in fact. Even now I take respite myself as I consider the worlds beyond. It is important to take stock. To pause in your movement at times to evaluate their efficacy and determine whether you must move differently when at last you resume. If I had continued in my path on the world of silver, for example, I would have taken action the end result of which would have displeased me greatly. Now with the benefit of rest I am able to determine a better way forward.**

Nissa frowned inwardly. Emrakul rarely ever spoke of her imprisonment on Innistrad as if it were anything of the sort. Something to keep tabs on for the future.

**Do not worry about me, Mover. My next actions are likely to take me to places you cannot follow, or would not wish to, and they will not happen for some time. You have enough to focus your energies on.**

“I do.”

**The burner smolders in your mind constantly. She is a great potential source of strength for you, but you deny yourself her presence to no-one’s benefit. I would see the two of you joined for your good and for hers.**

“I’m resolved to seek Chandra out when I’m ready. But that’s the condition. When I’m ready. It only makes it harder for me to feel like I’m in control of the decision when I have voices reminding me, unsolicited, that I need to decide.” Nissa ground her thumbs along the underside of her fingers. “If I make this choice, I need it to be my choice. I need...” Nissa fell silent, biting her lip, trying to think of the right words.

**You need the autonomy to make a space for her in your mind. To clear out a room where she can exist in your own existence without bringing distress to her or yourself.**

“I’m trying.” Nissa inhaled and let out the breath slowly, deliberately, counting out to the beat of her heart and the thrum of the mountain leylines below her. “There are many things occupying my mind though, and no matter how badly _you_ want it, _I_ need more time and space than most to accept so many others into my existence...my life. Space, time, and energy.”

**I want that for you, as far as you can understand the concept of ‘want.’ There’s joy to be had in the connection with others, and you can fit a good deal many others into your mind if you understand how.**

“I’m coming closer to understanding.” Nissa turned her head down the slope. Far, far below the fires of the camp were springing to light. “It’s as you say. I need to make space in my mind. But the rooms of my mind don’t fit many others comfortably. I think I can manage a few more people now and then, as long as I can have my rooms to myself when I need solitude.”

**Then make space too for solitude. You are powerful enough. You are clever enough. This, like most things, is well within your power.**

“I haven’t had solitude with you for some time.” You’ve been there in the back of my mind, watching everything. Looking over my shoulder. Looking out for me, which I appreciate, but I cannot be myself when I’m observed all the time, and I miss being myself.”

**That is a valid desire. Were I not Emrakul, I would be nothing. And experience has shown me that the creatures of flesh feel very similarly, weak as they are.**

“Right. So...”

**So?**

“...I’d like you to go. I’m grateful for what you’ve helped me accomplish, but I want any future interaction between us to be on my terms, not unbidden. I need to know I’m doing what I think is right because I want to do the right thing, not just because I’m placating a voice in my head.” Nissa paused a moment. “No matter how much that voice has helped me.”

**Then I am gone. As gone as my powers and our connection allow.**

Nissa blinked. “That easily.”

**That easily. Just the act of asking me to leave is something you wouldn’t have done when first we were joined. That you have asked now is another measure of strength you’ve gained.**

Nissa blinked again. “Ah. Well..thank you.”

**If you should ever wish to speak, you need only look up at the silver moon.**

Yes.

**To be clear, I mean the satellite that orbits the-**

“Don’t worry, I know where the moon is.” Nissa allowed herself a small smile. “I’m not _that_ lost in the world.”

**No.** Emrakul’s voice started to echo, still clear, but as if from a greater distance. **No I think you’ll make the worlds your playthings in time, mover. I look forward to seeing what that means for you.**

And then she was gone, and nothing but the brisk rush of mountain air filled Nissa’s ears.

* * *

They arrived at the peak on the fourth day. The ogres’ claims of expertise had carried the expedition through the first two days, and the combined efforts of the goblins saw them safely through the heart of the range, where the lava flowed freely and the vegetation grew sparse.

Kavi’s father identified a low caldera to mount for the test run. They climbed in a long caravan, the sweat building under their clothing as the slopes grew riddled with pits of liquid stone. The line of zendikari wound up the mountain alongside the eldrazi. Four days had been long enough for familiarity to breed out the worst of anyone’s nervousness around the drones.

Nahiri and the stone-forgers grew more and more excited with each new lava stream and pool they passed, planning which would make the best locations to establish permanent forges.

“She looks like she’s never had so much fun in her life,” Nissa remarked to Sorin after the third halt to inspect a vent in the mountainside.

“That’s the beauty of a world at peace,” Sorin replied, staring up to the summit. “Or relatively at peace. Less time spent struggling to survive, more time pursuing...hm...”

“Pursuing building?” Bruse ventured, stomping up the slope to join them.

“That,” Sorin said, nodding. “And growth. And Art. And...the things that make living worth all the fighting we do for it.”

“Hm! Beautifully said.” Bruse leaned an arm on Sorin’s shoulder,. “And what is that for you?”

Sorin blinked. “Well...I always wanted to be a tailor when I was young. Not that I had much time for it, as an alchemist’s apprentice. But I’ve always had a keen eye for fashion.  
  


Nissa remained quiet, but wrinkled her nose at Sorin’s gaudy, jewel-studded armor and leather duster.

Bruse stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “This I can see. Well, I look forward to seeing your work. Perhaps you are the one to finally get Bruse to wear a coat, hmm?” He slapped Sorin on the back and ambled over to Nahiri, to inspect the latest hole.

They reached the summit a little before midday, most of them panting and taking pulls from their canteens. Tazri had shucked her armor earlier in the morning and left it at their temporary encampment. She crested the top first, with Nissa at her shoulder. Below them, across a flat rim of stone about ten paces across, the largest pool of magma Nissa had ever seen bubbled and roiled with the heat of Zendikar’s very heart.

“Moment of truth.” Tazri turned to Nissa. “Are we ready?”

Nissa nodded, and signaled the drones forward with a thought. Half of them ambled up onto the rim in groups of three, every trio hefting a crucible between them. Sturdy cables of wound steel connected the each crucible to the drones carrying it. Nissa walked forward with the drones, monitoring them for any sign that the blanket of heat might affect their work.

The drones ringed the caldera without complaint or any sign of distress. Nissa probed each in turn. There was a caution for the heat, but as always, no fear.

The drones moved as one, scaling the inside walls of the caldera with care, lowering the crucibles to the pit of lava below. The massive bowls dipped into the molten stone, and sank out of sight. A second later, the drones began to climb, pulling up full loads of the white-hot stuff.

“Molds!” Nahiri called. The other workers hurried forward with the hollow clay blocks, positioning themselves where the eldrazi would rise up. As each drone cleared the lip, the crucibles tipped forward, pouring lava into the molds. Nahiri, Yarla, and the other two lithomancers moved around the rim, coaxing out the impurities in slow drips through a holes drilled onto the top of each block.

Secondary pairs of eldrazi moved in to carry the molds down the mountainside once the lithomancers finished. The stoneforgers followed behind them while the others watched from the rim, or from the slope. The first sets of eldrazi ambled back to the pit, and lowered the crucibles for a second collection.

They carried out the maneuver several dozen times, eventually timing it such that the fresh containers of lava were ready just as the stone in the molds finished cooling. A small stack of slates and brick grew down the slope, laid atop pallets strapped to the backs of still more eldrazi. Working in groups of four, the smaller drones were able to bear several tons of stone without any excess strain. A few of the larger spawn were able to bear larger stacks strapped to their backs like traveling-bags.

“The molds are a godsend,” Nahiri announced after they loaded up the second full pallet, running a hand along the interlocking stack of stone. “They can’t carry near this much when it’s just excavated stone.”

All the while Tazri watched, asking the occasional question about the quality of the stone or how frequently work crews would need to take breaks for safety’s sake. After an hour of harvesting and stacking, she nodded.

“I call this a success, provided we can make it back to the hills. Bruse?”

Bruse nodded, fanning himself with vigorous flaps of his hand. “I will have to consult with the others, but I can’t imagine them being anything less than pleased with this output, and to settle our refugee friends somewhere more to their liking.”

Nahiri hooted and pumped an arm in the air. The other stoneforgers looked similarly pleased, though exhausted and coated with sweat. They carried out several more moldings until every pallet was fully laden with blocks.

The goblins returned as the last pallets were lashed to the eldrazi. They brought with them several rough maps of the surrounding slopes, covered with rough markings in ink.

“Good holes for more lava.” Kavi’s father said, pointing out marked spots on the map while Kavi held it open. She was doing a good job, despite visibly vibrating with excitement. “If you pale-bodies can handle the heat.”

The remaining guides had scouted out routes for the stone-laden drones to descend the mountainside. The traveling downward would be slower with the full pallets, and much riskier, with heavy loads to potentially drop, but the first set of eldrazi moved evenly down the steep ground, flanked by the guides.

Tazri stayed at the lip of the caldera, watching as they descended, group by group. Nissa remained at her side, clutching her staff. The zendikari were still wary, but had quickly adapted to the novelty of the eldrazi responding to simple prompts, stopping and starting in response to taps to the head or, lacking one of those, their sides. Nahiri and Bruse were a few feet below Nissa, helping the last group secure the stone in place. Sorin hovered overhead, clearly enjoying the effect of the rising heat, that caused his duster to billow with a menace.

“Much more productive than our last visit,” Nissa ventured.

Sorin snorted. “Much more. You’ve become a more agreeable companion since then, elf.”

Nissa’s cheek curled up with a smile. “And you will someday as well, vampire.”

They watched as the final set of guides eased slowly down the trail. Nissa and Bruse climbed back up to the rim to watch the descent.

Nissa leaned forward on her staff. A wind from down the slope caught her. It was a warm breeze, objectively, but felt cool compared to the rest of the air around the caldera. Nissa turned from the slope.

Tazri looked over at her. “Ready?”

“A moment.”

Nissa walked to the caldera. With every step the air grew hotter. Sweltering, but not so hard to breath as it had been a few minutes earlier. The flow felt like fingers wrapping around her, curling around her arm and lacing through her fingers.

She stopped at the inner edge. It was hot. Blisteringly hot. Nissa reached out a hand over the magma and felt the heat push up her palm. A shudder ran up her arm and down her back. It was a wonderful sensation, in its own way. Overwhelming, but she could always step back-

“Nissa?”

She looked over her shoulder, her hand clasping to her chest. A slick layer of sweat ran underneath her clothes, and her heart was hammering.

“I’m ready to go.”

“Good.” Bruse was fanning at his face with both hands now. “Too much time in the heights. It’s enough to boil a fellow’s blood in his veins.”

“No, I...” She looked to Nahiri and Sorin. “...Chandra. I’m ready to see her.”

“Now?” Nahiri exchanged a look with Sorin. “I mean, not that I’m not happy to hear it but-”

“I’d like to go now. Please.” Nissa walked to the start of the slope down the peak to join them. “It feels right now, and I’d like to go...I don’t want to give the feeling a chance to change.”

Another exchange of glances, and then shrugs. Smiles.

“Ravnica, then?” Sorin asked.

“Ravnica.”

“You’re leaving?” Tazri raised an eyebrow.

“Just for a while.” The wind along the peak cooled Nissa’s skin, but her cheeks remained warm. “I have something I need to see to. I’ll be back soon.”

“Hm.” Tazri nodded, then smiled. “Make sure ‘something’ understands what she’s missing out on.” Then the shot a hard look at Sorin and Nahiri. “And you two make sure she makes it back, understood? This is precious cargo right here.”

Nahiri crossed her arms and pouted. “We were already planning on that,” she grumbled. Sorin just nodded.

“We won’t be long.” He paused. “Well, we won’t be longer than a declaration of love takes.”

“S-Sorin!” Nissa could hardly have felt hotter than she did already, but she could still somehow feel herself blush. And smile, despite her embarrassment.

“Yes, do not tarry; the oxen will miss you all dearly.” Bruse clapped a hand on Nahiri and Sorin’s shoulders. They both started, but they seemed oddly cheered by the gesture. Nissa smiled to think they’d made such a good friend in their time with the caravan.

Nissa stepped up onto a tagged tooth of stone jutting from the mountainside. Sorin and Nahiri stood behind her, to the left and right. Below, the ogres had started up a long, bellowing hiking song. Further out, she could feel the rustle in the leylines where the Goma Fada bustled with early evening chores and calls to supper.

Nissa smiled. Friends. It was good to have friends.

She tapped her staff against the stone, and fell forward into the eternities.


	6. Chandra

“Please, Tomik. Don’t be unreasonable about this.”

“Unreasonable?” The Orzhov guildmaster raised an eyebrow over his glasses. “Vraska, unreasonable would be turning one of my guild’s most influential and connected members over to a team of Izzet and Golgari based on hearsay.” He shot a look, though not unkindly, at the others in the room. Chandra was fidgeting by a bookcase filled with old books and trinkets. Samut was standing at a sort of parade rest, clearly wary of the posh furniture in the room, and Crix was seated next to Vraska, in a chair whose back would have dwarfed her even if she had been standing in the seat. Ral Zarek, leaned up against a bookcase opposite Chandra, gave Tomik a small smile as their eyes met.

There was a scratch of wood on stone as Vraska leaned forward in her chair. “I have plenty of witnesses who can attest to the name they heard-”

“A name they heard in pitch darkness, from someone who could have been anyone, and who they saw in the company of, and correct me if I’m wrong-” Tomik adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him. He tapped it once “-a mimic or shapeshifter of some kind. You’ve got two ghosts who you claim are Orzhov-contracted but who you won’t let us interrogate, and who, by your own admission, bore fungal armor grown in the Golgari style. All that, _and_ you’ve no proof that the individual claiming to be Slavomir wasn’t a mimic himself, which is exactly the first thing the vampire families are going to throw in my face if I go to them with this.” He looked up. “Do you know what they’re saying out in the streets, Vraska?”

Vraska scoffed. “Do _you_? Do the ghouls here even let you out among the common people any more?”

“I welcome the people of Ravnica _into_ our places of business now, Vraska.” Tomik pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The Gruul and the Rakdos think you’re looking to expand into their turf. I have representatives from the Boros, Azorius, and even the Selesnya looking to collaborate with us on legal action against your guild. _Both_ of your guilds,” He added, eyeing Ral. “A few among the Conclave and the Senate even think the Izzet are trying to use the Golgari to further some forsaken experiment. You’re lucky the league has such a high friend in the legal system right now. Does the Guildpact even know you’re here right now, asking for this?”

Vraska sat back in her chair. She looked just as poised in her fungal gown as she did with a sword in hand. “I’m trying to do you a favor by _not_ dragging the Guildpact into this, Tomik. Do you really want the dragon inserting himself into this mess?”

Tomik pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. No, I guess not. Still, the answer is absolutely not. We’ll conduct our own investigation.”

“Do you not trust us?” Samut asked, tilting her head forward, eyebrow raised.

“I’m not optimistic about acting on the word of two outsiders, an elemental, a troll, and…well, you and Myczil might make convincing witnesses,” Tomik conceded, nodding toward Crix. “But the circumstances of the encounter are against you. You _say_ it was an Orzhov guild member, but you have nothing concrete to show me it was. You _say_ it was a vampire but that’s based off what? One elf’s assessment? How do you know it wasn’t another shapeshifter?”

“I...I trust Myczil,” Vraska said, tendrils flaring up at the tips. “He learned from on of the best hunters in all the undercity. If he says it was a vampire, I believe him.”

Chandra looked across the few feet of office separating her and Ral Zarek. The Izzet guild leader was very clearly avoiding looking toward the desk where the others were arguing. Chandra nodded her head at them and raised her brow at him.

He sighed. “Tomik, could we at least speak to _someone_? I know the Vampire families in the syndicate are clannish, but if we could just ask after anyone they suspect might be working with the Dimir. Even if it’s just someone _pretending_ to be Slavomir...”

Tomik sat back, rapping his fingers across the edge of the desk. “I’ll ask. I will do everything in my power to ensure our investigation is thorough and fair.” He sighed. “That said, Don’t hold your breath.”

“That’s it then?” Vraska’s voice sharpened. “The Orzhov just harbor wrongdoers in their midst?”

“It’s the Orzhov,” Tomik said, smiling sadly. “What did you expect?”

“Useless,” Vraska hissed as they poured out the office, likely loud enough for Ral and Tomik, still inside, to hear. Chandra was still very much not talking to Vraska outside of what was necessary, but she couldn’t disagree. The comment _did_ earn Vraska a scowl from the giant looming just outside Tomik’s office.

Not that Vraska paid him the least notice.

“Useless,” she repeated. “Well, we go through the dragon now, I suppose.” She cast a glance back at Tomik’s office door. The giant was now standing directly in front of the threshold, golden helmet covering everything but his frown. “I don’t suppose you have any pull with our honored Guildpact?” she added, glancing down at Crix.

“As with all things to do with the Firemind, it’ll depend on his mood.” Crix grinned, showing teeth. “I witnessed one of his greatest embarrassments in my youth. Depending on whether he feels more ashamed or indignant, he might lend us some authority in questioning this ‘Slavomir’”

Samut grunted from behind them. “And how likely is he to be in a shameful mood?”

Crix barked out a laugh. “You haven’t met many dragons, have you dear?”

* * *

Chandra stared up at the eyes of a dragon as it frowned at her. The metal bust was an uncanny likeness of Niv-Mizzet, though it was unclear what function it served to the glass-box prison it adorned.

“I don’t get it. If these are Orzhov ghosts why _didn’t_ we ask Tomik to give us one of their...ghost guys? To get them to talk?”

“Orzhov- _contracted_ ghosts,” Tizmugah corrected, tapping on the glass barrier that divided the high-vaulted, mizzium-walled room in half. “And the Orzhov, we suspect, are precisely the reason our efforts to locate the animating force of these eternals have been fruitless. We can’t be sure whoever they send hasn’t been paid off to keep us from gathering information.” The two eternals on the other side remained kneeling, barely responded to her taps, except to shift their heads toward the cyclops.

Their faces were rigid lazotep, but Chandra almost thought she could sense them glaring.

“Were they...stealing the ghosts away?” Chandra tore her eyes away. On the other side of Tizmugah, Samut was staring down the eternals with a look of pure venom.

“Worse, banishing them entirely.” Tizmugah shook their head. “No remains, no ectoplasmic leavings, no witnesses to tell us who organized the attacks. Who _else_ organized the attacks, I mean.”

“So we know who sent them. Know that they are working with even more conspirators and who-knows how many other fallen warriors of Amonkhet, but not a single person who knows where Slavomir is will tell us.” Samut swore and turned away from the eternals. “if only we’d gotten a better look under that mask.”

“Then it would still be your word against theirs,” Tizmugah said, with a tinny sigh. “Even if these two talk, I have my doubts it will count for much unless we can get the Orzhov or the Azorius on our side. For now, we wait. For the next attack. For the Orzhov to decide they care more about the city than covering for the mistakes of their own.”

Chandra crossed her arms. “How likely is that?”

“Not very. It’s guild nature, more or less.” Tizmugah ran the blunt end of their gauntlet against the bottom of their helmet, as though they were thinking. “Though I suppose each has got its pressure points. Jealous Magewrights will rat on each other. The Gruul will turn on clan-mates based on their own notions of strength and honor. But the Orzhov...”

“Gold?” Chandra ventured.

“Not as likely as you’d think,” Ral said, striding into the room, adjusting his own gauntlet. “Most of them know there’s more profit to be made from sticking together than turning each other in.”

“All these fucking law guilds,” Chandra grumbled. “I thought it was bad trying to deal with the Azorius or the Boros. At least they pretend to be righteous while they refuse to help.”

“That’s why these two are here, instead of in an Azorius cell. Or in some Orzhov dungeon.” Ral shook his head. “I understand why Lavinia decided to delegate Senate guild leadership responsibilities to committee. It will be good for long-term change, but...for now the bureaucracy is working against us.”

“Don’t your viziers want want to root out this danger?” Samut asked, gesturing with an open hand at the eternals.

“There’s a million matters to see to with all the upheavals the city’s endured the past few months. That the Dimir are scheming something is nothing new or noteworthy by comparison, and Orzhov money is needed to rebuild, so...”

Samut shook her head and went back to watching the eternals.

“Is Tomik alright with this?” Chandra nodded at the glass cell, asking the question as casually as she could manage.

Jace had told her about Ral’s relationship with the Orzhov guild master, but she and Ral weren’t especially close.

“Alright enough,” Ral replied, jaw flexing. “It’s better for him if it looks like I’m stonewalling him on getting the ghosts back. Less of a headache than if the Orzhov had gotten these two back and we had to put in a formal request to interview them. Everything in order?” He added to Tizmugah as he approached the control station at the center of the room, a bench and console made of mizzium.

“All holds steady.” Tizmugah tapped the fan of mizzium that connected the console to the glass. “I just need you to update the lock codes. they’ll expire in a week.”

Ral sighed, nodded, and leaned over the console, though he remained standing while he scanned the buttons.

“What about the worms?” Samut asked. “Who could argue the worms don’t give us the right to investigate the Dimir? It’s their creature, right?”

“That’s the problem.” Ral collapsed into the chair in front of the console and ran a hand over his scalp. “They’re Dimir creatures, and hardly anyone knows a damned thing for certain about the Dimir.” He looked over his shoulder toward the door, where a gaseous blue weird in an intricate metal harness stood guard. “We need to be extremely careful about who we mention the worms to. If the Dimir get a whiff that we suspect their involvement, well...” He turned back to the console. “...of course, that’s assuming they don’t know already.”

“So that’s why you didn’t mention them,” Samut hissed, rubbing her forehead. “Nothing is easy with you people.”

Ral nodded, absently. His fingers were tracing over the array of buttons and switches spread out on the console. “Plus, with as little as people trust the Golgari right now, the wojek and the Azorius are more inclined to think the worms are some Golgari insect trickery. The firemind...the Guildpact has immense faith in Crix, so it’s lucky you have her as an eyewitness, but he can’t simply bulldoze the law, even if he _is_ the law.” Ral paused, and looked up. “Plus, even if we did get Azorius clearance to investigate the Dimir...well, it’s not like the Dimir exactly acknowledge the Senate’s authority on the best of days.”

Chandra looked over at the eternals. “Why don’t we start taking them apart piece by piece until they talk, then?”

“Torture doesn’t work, for one,” Ral replied. “Two, the Orzhov contract magic is tricky. They’ve been bound to not feel pain unless their contract holder chooses to inflict it, and any severe damage to the body will let the soul escape. The cage should hold the souls if they do get out...” Ral tapped the dashboard in front of him. “...but if we can keep them in those skeletons, well...those are a lot easier to keep track of.”

There was a brief silence, filled with static and clicks from the console.

“If I’m being honest,” Ral added at last, “I doubt their testimony will make a difference if we can’t get the contract holder himself.”

Samut nodded. “Fine. Well what do we do, then?”

“Wait, I guess.” Chandra glanced at the clock mounted onto the glass, just below the dragon face, and positioned so that anyone trapped behind the barrier couldn’t read it. “As for me...I’ve got an appointment to keep.”

* * *

“So what are your restrictions on, like, conflicts of interest?”

Jenezk looked up from her desk, brow raised. “How do you mean?”

Chandra exhaled, and sank another few inches into the plump cushion of her chair. “So it looks like the job we took...well, we’re not exactly investigating the Orzhov right now, but my clients might be, uh, trying to look for someone who works _for_ the Orzhov. I probably shouldn’t say more than that. We met with your guild leader the other day.”

“Tentatively, I’d say the less I know about that, the better.” Jenezk scratched her chin. “Though as conflicts of interest go in this guild, that’s rather minor. We try to keep this service separate from the Syndicate’s business operations.”

Chandra nodded. The sky overhead was overcast, and the occasional drip of rain on the skylight told her a storm wasn’t far off. Jenezk’s assistant thrull had lit lamps along the walls, filling the office with a warm, cozy light.

“That said,” Jenezk continued, standing and ambling over to her own chair, “Part of us continuing depends on your own comfort, and if you’d rather not-”

“No, no.” Chandra sighed and sat up in her chair. “Just...full disclosure and all that, you know?”

Jenezk smiled “Thank you.” She sat. “So what else has been on your mind? What have you been doing with your off-hours?”

“Resting, mostly. I think Samut and me slept a whole day once we got back to our apartment.” Chandra patted her neck. “Fell asleep on a pile of books, actually. Other than that...I guess thinking about some of the stuff we’ve been talking about. Where I want to get to, mentally.”

“And?”

“Mm.” Chandra ran a hand along her trousers, pinching a fold between her fingers. “I think I’d like to start doing more things...just to do things? If that makes sense? Maybe some things for myself, when this job is done. I’ve been thinking about the fun stuff I’ve done lately. Just the downtime with Samut and Ajani and my mom and...I want more of that. I want to keep helping people, but I want to enjoy the world I’m protecting as well as protect it.”

Jenezk nodded. “That’s an excellent goal. When do you have to work next?”

“Uh...that really depends. There hasn’t been anything urgent to do, and I think we’re sort of just...” Chandra traced a circle in the air with her finger. “Waiting on the bureaucracy right now. Uh, sorry to be vague.”

“I understand why. And I understand about the bureaucracy too. But if you’re waiting, then I think now’s the perfect time to start doing things for yourself. It’s important that we work, but you shouldn’t get in the habit of denying yourself until the work is done, especially if you don’t know when it will end. _Especially_ with activities as unpredictable as yours sound.”

Chandra chewed her lip. “I guess I haven’t seen my mom in a while...”

“Consider it doctor’s orders.” Jenezk made a scratch on her pad. “Go. Talk. Get a nice home-cooked meal.” She looked up. “Who else would you like to see?”

“Jaya and Brannon, I guess. I owe the monastery a visit. Ajani. um...”

Chandra trailed off. After about a minute of silence, Jenezk shifted in her chair.

“Uh, I mean, there’s sort of someone else, but I don’t know if...it’s tricky.”

“Mm.” Jenezk tapped her quill against the top of her pad. “Would this be...Nissa?”

“Uh-huh.” Chandra nodded. She scratched her head, and slipped her goggles off. A few strands of hair fell over her eyes, and she brushed them back.

“Tell me about Nissa.”

“Um...” Chandra turning the goggles over in her hands. “...I met Nissa the first time we were fighting...okay, they weren’t gods, technically, but they might as well have been. I’ve fought real gods, and these things could have tossed a god around.”

Jenezk raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Just nodded slowly.

“Uh, anyway, that’s not the point. I met Nissa when we were fighting these gods and um, we killed them together. I’m not bragging or anything. Like, we had help doing it for sure but it was me and Nissa that did the killing blow.”

“That is...quite the circumstance to meet someone under.”

“Yeah. Um, we actually met a little earlier than that, even.” Chandra grinned. “I saved her from a demon. Her and Jace and Gideon. It’s kind of funny – I went to give her a handshake after the demon ran off and she grabbed it with both her hands and I remember thinking how beautiful her eyes were. They glow,” Chandra added. “Like emeralds, but, more amazing than any emerald you’ve ever seen in real life. It was sort of hectic between then and us actually killing the...they weren’t really gods, I just can’t think of a better way to describe them. It’s like...you guys have all those Dimir horrors in the sewers, right?”

“Unfortunately.” Jenezk pursed her lips. “Though I’ve only seen illustrations, thank the sun.”

“Right, well, imagine one of those but it’s bigger than the biggest building you’ve ever seen and also one of them can make you go insane. That’s these things. But we killed them, and I remember...” Chandra cut herself off with a laugh. “...I remember after, when we were helping everyone sort of start to clean up the mess of fighting these things. I saw Nissa. She was carrying pillows or something, I don’t exactly remember but...there was something about her that made me feel happier? Or maybe, like, just more at peace than I’d felt for a long time.”

Chandra realized she was gesturing with her hands, but Jenezk didn’t seem to mind.

“And she just makes me feel like that in general. At peace. And then...after everything that happened here...I just felt tired. Not just around her, but around everyone, and I think the fact that I expected not to feel tired or miserable around her made it feel worse to be around her than with anyone else. I just...even when I was nervous or upset around her in the past, I still wanted to be around her and-I don’t know, it was a good kind of nervous to be around her. Like the kind of nervous where you’re like, ‘oh my god I can’t believe I get to be around this person I hope I don’t screw up?’ Which I guess isn’t great, but I didn’t mind it if it meant I could be around her and-”

Chandra looked up. Jenezk was looking at her, and maybe sort of smiling? She nodded at Chandra encouragingly.

“I um...I might have been in love with her.” Chandra’s fingers pressed tight against the glass of her goggle. The rubber along the rims bit into her thumb. “I think I might still be. I don’t know.”

“Well, whether you’re in love with her or not, is she someone you’d like to make time to see?”

Chandra set her goggles down on a small, spindly-legged table by her arm. “I...yeah. I really would. The last time I talked with her I felt so damned tired. I mean, I feel tired _now,_ but, I guess for a while the thought of talking with her, I thought that was what was making me feel tired but I think...I think I just needed a break. After...”

“After everything?”

“Yeah. All of it. Ugh.” Chandra wrinkled her nose. “I’m realizing that for all the crap I’m dealing with right now, it’s practically a vacation compared to the last year.”

“That’s fair. We need a break from even our favorite people sometime, especially after events of great stress in our lives.”

“It wasn’t always like that,” Chandra murmured in reply. “Before that...before the invasion here, we went through plenty of rough stuff together. She always made me feel stronger. More sure. I thought it would always be like that, but...I don’t know. It felt different, somehow. Like we were just making each other tired after Gideon died.”

“Hm.” Jenezk tapped her quill to her chin. “We all have different limits for stress. That the two of you hit it after as many truly trying experiences as you’ve described to me is more credit to both of you than I think you realize. It’s certainly not something to flagellate yourself over.”

“I wish I could have been there for her, though. I mean, I guess part of the problem was that I didn’t think I _could_ be there the way she needed. Not with how loud and annoying I could be. But like, I should have made more of an effort, right? That would have been the right thing to do, instead of just pushing her away?”

“The people we love can’t be expected to be our strength all the time. And it works both ways. It’s...it’s good to try, definitely, but if you’re burning yourself out, or if you’re already burned out, the responsible thing is often to just take a step back." Jenezk set her quill flat on the pad in her lap. "As people, we’re just not made to be pillars for each other all the time, and if we have to be...well, consider that after the invasion may simply have been the first good opportunity you both had to rest. And if you had to rest apart from each other...there’s no shame in it.”

Chandra set her head against the back of the chair. Her brain felt like it was buzzing.

“Thoughts?”

“Yeah...” Chandra laced her fingers together and pulled them apart, fidgeting. “I...I definitely think I want to see her. Um, I want to see my mom first, I think, but maybe after my job is over...”

Jenezk nodded. “It’s alright if you need time before you see certain people as well.”

“I mean, I don’t know if I _need_ time so much as I _want_ a bit more time. The last time we met, uh, it didn’t go great. I said some stuff to her and...” Chandra pursed her lips, staring down at her knees.

“What sort of conversation was it?”

“Uh, well...I don’t know if it was a conversation so much as I just kind of talked with her? Talked _at_ her, actually.” Chandra shifted in her seat, leaning forward. “Okay so like. The thing about Nissa? She likes quiet. Like, alone time and all that. Which I’m totally cool with, but I guess I got to thinking after the invasion, and after we’d been apart for a while...I mean, I don’t know how compatible that is with...well, all of me, and while we were together?” She reached across her chest and gripped the hem of her sleeve between thumb and forefinger. “I just – I don’t know, we kissed but it all felt wrong at the time so it seemed like calling the whole thing off was a good idea and Nissa didn’t _say_ anything to contradict me when I told her we shouldn’t be together and I felt good about it at the time but I think that was maybe because I felt so scared even having the conversation and the fact that it was going to end without her getting upset because I’d hurt her was such a relief that I just left it at that and I didn’t really press her on how she felt about it but now I keep thinking about her and I wonder did I just screw up a really good thing between us? Over a bad kiss and just...the fact that I was feeling shitty at the time?”

Chandra ran both hands over her forehead. “I keep thinking about the few times we tried...the times we tried to get close after the invasion. A month before I would have killed for something like that between us and...and even now I can’t believe I let myself not enjoy it.”

Jenezk lifted the pitcher by her chair as Chandra pulled in a long breath, and poured a glass of water. She held it out and Chandra took it, not sure whether to drink or press the cold glass against her forehead.

“The time immediately following a trauma is rarely fertile ground for a relationship to happen.” Jenezk offered once Chandra had settled on the latter option for her drink. “So I think you can forgive yourself for not wanting to push your relationship. You simply can’t judge your actions following such as...a series of traumas the same way you would judge actions taken during a more stable time in your life.”

“Yeah but _now_ I feel crummy about it.”

“Well, it sounds like you went with the intention of talking, then didn’t actually do any two-way communicating.” Jenezk plucked up her quill. “How would you feel about having that conversation now?”

“...scared?”

“That’s valid.”

“I feel like I don’t deserve her anymore, after what I did.”

“Why is that?”

Chandra pressed the back of her head int the chair. “So like, I think Nissa’s been really patient with me. I was sort of all over her after our mission from back where I grew up. I think I wanted to have the conversation there and then about what we were. But it was faster than she was comfortable with, which is fine, right? She was honest with me about having a hard time talking to me. I think, not _me_ specifically but...it's just not easy for her to express herself with words. And I guess that was frustrating to hear but it made sense and I was going to give her all the space she needed, you know? Be the best friend I could. I kind of had it in my mind that we’d all be together as a team for at least a while longer. But then everything went to shit when we tried to fight Bolas the first time and she just...left.”

“And why do you think that was?”

“I mean...she said it was because Lili had lied to us. There was a whole thing about her own demons-”

“-real demons, right? Just to be sure.”

“Right, and she hadn’t told us about them which obviously wasn’t great but then Nissa really went off on us and just...she just left and so of course my next thought is that she left because we all did so badly and that I needed to get stronger so...that was the whole thing with trying to hunt down Jaya and work on my fire magic.”

“Right.” Jenezk flipped her notepad back several pages. “...and when was the next time you and Nissa were able to sit down and talk with each other?”

“Probably on...” Chandra frowned. “Well, after the invasion we...didn’t I guess. Never. Amonkhet – uh, the place where we fought the dragon the first time, that was the last time we actually had a conversation with each other.”

“I see.” The quill scratched on paper; five quick slashes of ink. “So, and please correct me if this is wrong, You don’t actually have it from Nissa how she has felt since you parted after the dragon, beyond what you inferred? And maybe a few words exchanged without a real structured conversation?”

Chandra frowned. Her fingers were itching to pick up her goggles and fiddle with them again.

“I guess not.”

“I think a good next step would be to think on what you want to say to her if...no, _when_ you see each other again. We can discuss how you feel about her more easily if you give yourself a chance to sort your feelings out.

Chandra nodded. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“For now, take five. See your mother. You’ve chosen your battle for now, and you have time to rest. And we make our best decisions after we’ve had a chance to rest.”

* * *

“What do you think?”

“I...like it so far. Why is everything so much more...colorful than on Ravnica?”

Chandra shrugged at Samut’s question. “Better people, if you ask me. Well, better people, _now_. Makes it a more interesting place to live. Here, check this out.”

They were walking along a gorge at the edge of Ghirapur city center, near the canals. Chandra led Samut to the railing along the lip of the gorge just in time to see several airships, each one just barely large enough to fit its single pilot, zip by, jockeying for a lead against the others.

“Gods!” Samut whipped her head around to track the ships as they whirled under a bridge and out of sight. "Not even the Izzet devices go that fast!”

“Like I said, just a better city” Chandra grinned. “Wait until we see some of the dragsters. They’re almost as quick as you.”

“A machine? Doubtful.” Samut tapped the toe of her sandal on the ground. “But I’d like to see one try all the same.”

Pia had been out of the house when they’d arrived that morning. Urgent business with some power plant in the outskirts of the city, according to the chatty old elvish man who lived downstairs. Chandra had taken the opportunity to drag Samut to all her favorite spots in the city, from the places she’d run errands for her parents when she was younger, to the balconies where she’d taken Liliana and Nissa on their rare moments of free time after they’d overthrown the consulate.

“I can see why you like it,” Samut said as they leaned out from one such balcony atop an aether spire, watching a skywhale make a long circuit around the outer districts.

“It’s fun,” Chandra grinned. “And home.”

“Not Nissa’s sort of place though, from what you’ve told me?”

“Ah, yeah.” Chandra lay her crossed arms against a gilded banister. “More her sort of place than Ravnica but yeah, less so than most other places. Too many people all together, I think. Zendikar really suits her, which is lucky, I guess.”

“Mm.” Samut turned away, tracking the whale as it banked out of sight. “Is it the kind of place that’d suit _you_?”

“I don’t think there’s any one place that suits me,” Chandra watched the horizon. Thopters buzzed up from the buildings and dived back down like metal fleas. “I mean, for a while, sure. I’m gonna visit her there at some point. I think...I could even live in a place like that, for a while, but...”

“...But there’s a whole multiverse to see?”

“Yeah.”

Samut nodded. She looked like she was staring out at something even beyond the horizon. “We’re lucky to have the option at all.”

“...Yeah.”

They returned to Pia’s apartment just as the afternoon started to drag the blue from the sky. She was home this time, and pulled Chandra into a tight mom-hug before she could even make it all the way through the threshold.

“Chandra!” She kissed Chandra on the cheek and they moved a foot apart. “Mr. Sanahir said he’d seen you this morning. Are you hungry?”

“Oh, uh-”

“Very.” Samut stepped forward, smiling. “Nice to meet you. Chandra has been talking about your cooking all afternoon.”

Chandra flushed. “Mom, this is Samut.”

“Welcome!” Pia smiled and pressed her hands together. “Pia. Please, come in. I’ve just come home myself, but I’ll have some food ready soon.”

Samut walked in ahead of Chandra, and Pia took the moment to raise her eyebrow and tilt her head at the warrior’s back, meeting Chandra’s eye with an inquisitive look. Chandra jerked her head to the side.

“Just a friend, mom,” She muttered.

“Mm.” Pia shook her head, than a bit louder: “Well you girls get comfortable. Chandra, why don’t you show Samut around the house? I’ll prepare the table.”

Samut looked confused as Chandra led her out of the entryway and into their sitting room. “ _That’s_ your mother?”

“Yeah, why?”

Samut shook her head. “No reason. She seems very friendly.”

They ate around a low table, reclining on mom’s old cushions; a simple but scrumptious supper of stewed fruit and samosas. Chandra mostly stuffed her face and listened to her mom chat about consulate work. When she’d eaten her fill, she joined Pia in telling Samut all about the underground racing in Ghirapur.

A little before midnight, Pia started yawning behind her hand and shaking her head. She put in a comment or two on the topic of city safety regulations, but her eyes kept slipping closed.

Chandra put a hand on her mom’s cheek the third time she nodded off into her shoulder.

“You should get some sleep, mom.”

“Hmph.” Pia tapped Chandra on the forehead. “Listen to this one, trying to mother her mother.” She yawned. “Alright. Will I see you for breakfast before you go?”

“Definitely. When do you have to get up for work?”

“I like to beat the sun up in the morning. I’ll shake you girls awake.” Pia stood, stooped, and kissed Chandra on the forehead. “Sleep tight, my fire. Don’t stay up too late.”

“‘kay.”

“She’s very interesting, your mother,” Samut commented later, up on the roof. “Artificer by training, but a vizier in her daily life?”

“She’s really talented.” Chandra tapped her heel against the side of the building. They were perched up on the ledge, watching the spread of aether lights that dotted the city, a constant glow from the streets and the towers. “And she’s been a really good leader around here. Her and all the other consulate members who actually care about the people.”

“It’s impressive how she’s changed her calling. Or...adopted a new one, rather.” Samut took a pull from a bottle of woodapple juice, and handed it to Chandra. The juice was cool and sweet and perfect for the warm night.

“Mm.” Chandra set the bottle down between them. “Hope for all of us one-note ‘walkers, huh?”

“Speak or yourself,” Samut scoffed. “I’ve been learning all sorts of new skills lately. Comes with having to re-settle your entire civilization.” She leaned forward, looking over the street below. “I need to find a desert plane sometime soon. See if there are any good tricks of horticulture I could bring back.”

“I could help ask around. I bet-” Chandra paused, and turned her eyes down to the street as well. “-I bet Nissa knows. I should just go and ask her.”

“I can ask as well. I wouldn’t ask you to go and do something that makes you uncomfortable that I can do myself.”

“Oh, yeah, I just...” Chandra set the bottle between them. “I want to be helpful as well. Even if it’s just talking, you know? Like we talked about before?”

Samut nodded. “Right. Before.”

“I mean, the offer still stands?”

“When you asked how I was...” Samut trailed off, inhaling. “...was that for your own comfort, or for mine?”

Chandra chewed her lip. “Both, I guess. But...I know that these aren’t always comfortable conversations and if I, uh, have to be a little less comfortable to talk about anything that’s bothering you, I prefer to be a little less comfortable.”

Samut shook her head. “Comfort...it’s different on these city-worlds than it is back home. I haven’t been able to offer true comfort, or any sort of long-term balm to my people since Naktamun fell.” She scowled. “Yet here I am, enjoying it myself while they suffer. Not a very worthy thing to do.”

“I...” Chandra swallowed. “...I don’t think you can hold yourself to that standard, you know? Of worthiness? That’s...you’re talking about values that Bolas forced on your plane.”

“Values he perverted,” Samut said, voice sharp. “Values he appropriated to manipulate us.” She took another deep breath. “There’s still worth to them. To solidarity. Knowledge. Even ambition. He can’t take our virtues from us.”

Chandra opened her mouth to start saying something, then thought better of it. Samut knew what she was going through better than she did, after all.

“I’m glad that beast is dead,” Samut said, eyes back on the city lights. “I know he’s in the past and I ought to forget about him but I will never stop being glad that he died, and I only regret that it was the dead of Amonkhet, and not the living that got to deal the blow that killed him. I’m sorry that you lost a friend, but I have no pity for your necromancer, who willingly used the bodies of my people as weapons. I have no desire to hunt down those who worked for the false pharaoh...but if I cross the path of any such fool in my travels, then the gods of every world will cringe to see what I make of them. _That_ I need you to understand.”

“I...you’d be right to do it,” Chandra said, after a lapse. “I went after Baan for less reason than you have to be angry. And if you did want to go after Tezzeret, I couldn’t blame you. You’d have my support.”

“Mm.” Samut’s scowl faded. “As if I have time for revenge.” She let out a slow breath. “There’s enough to worry about already.” She took the bottle from between them and took a long, slow pull. They both fell quiet, watching the slow traffic pass by beneath their feet. The vendors had long since closed their stalls, and only the hidden wares of the night market would be moving at this hour, somewhere in the shadows of the city.

“There’s an inventor here,” Chandra said, “An elf who created the portal that...the portal that connected worlds back during the invasion. She’s helping the new consulate develop technology to transport goods from city to city. I’m sure she must be closer to a means of transportation for...food and such. Perishables. Things we could send to Amonkhet to help. And even if not, I’m sure there are other things we could send...”

Samut nodded, eyes closed. When she opened them again she turned and offered the bottle back to Chandra.

“I appreciate the offer. And the introduction, at some point.”

Chandra took the bottle. “Sure.”

“But you offered to talk, and I just want to talk right now. I have people to talk about solutions with, Chandra, and I don’t mind you being one of those people, but I’m not always looking to have answers thrown at me.” She leaned forward, hands planted on her knees. “The fact that you’ve offered to listen, and that you have listened is what I need right now.”

“Right.” Chandra cradled the bottle in both hands. “That...I understand. Whatever helps.”

“It does help.” Samut nodded out into the night. “To have you...to have what’s left of my people. We’re all confused and terrified but we’ve learned the lessons of solidarity thoroughly enough that we shoulder each others’ burdens in and out of battle.” She looked down into the streets. The lights made hot points of color shine on her cheeks and her forehead. “I wish...I want us to succeed on Ravnica. I want the answers I find out in the multiverse to help them, so I can provide them with solace and substance. I’ve found aid, but...our challenges are many, and sometimes searching the planes feels like combing through sand for seeds.”

“It’s a lot to shoulder,” Chandra offered.

“Basri’s helped,” Samut sighed. “He and Djeru snipe at each other like children behind the tent flaps but they’ve put together a good united front with everyone else. Basri’s good for morale but he still thinks too much like someone leading a crop into battle, and not like someone trying to keep a people alive. Djeru tempers that impulse, I think, but I find myself having to make peace between them more often than I would like.” Samut shrugged. “Boys.”

“Basri’s the new guy, right? The cat-boy?”

“Acolyte of Oketra, yes.” Samut’s head bobbed with a short, soft laugh. “At first I thought it would break him to know what had happened to our gods, but he is resilient. We all are. Our gods taught us well, misguided though they were.”

“How has it been with, um...with Hazoret?”

“I think she’s frustrated. She can keep us safe from the worst of the horrors and the sandwurms, but she’s just one...well, not person, but even a single god can fall short. There’s so much we need that she simply does not have the skill or the knowledge to help us with. And there’s….an anger to her sometimes. Not at us but a righteous anger at the decades of deceit and folly that the colonizing dragon made possible with her as the tool. She urges us forward always, but _she_ has not moved forward. Not fully. And she blames herself for so many of our dead.”

“I’m sure...I mean, I know _you’ve_ always been grateful she survived.”

“Yes…she inspires us all, and I wish she could see that.” Samut sighed again and fell silent. She leaned sideways and lay her head on Chandra’s shoulder, the coils of her hair grazing Chandra’s neck. “I’m tired.”

“Bed.”

“In a little. Up here’s nice for a while.”

“Sure.” Chandra put a hand on Samut’s shoulder, and leaned back on the railing behind them. She stretched out her other hand and watched the halo of light from the streets shine one her palm. Her hair was brushing her forehead and cheeks as the warm winds stirred it. “A little while longer.”

* * *

Pia woke them right at sunrise the next morning. They shared a breakfast of paratha and spicy puffed rice, enjoying the merchant calls and the faint sound of mechanical birdsong from the stalls outside. After Pia left for the consulate, Samut and Chandra slept another few hours until the morning heat drove them up to seek more water, and to make preparations to leave.

“Suppose it’s been long enough for them to get authority from their own dragon to go after that...it’s ‘vampire,’ right?”

Chandra nodded. “Vampire, yeah. I dunno...Jace always gave me the impression that nothing happens especially quickly with the Azorius. I mean, I don’t _think_ that Niv-Mizzet is part of the Azorius now, but based on when Jace had the position I’m pretty sure he has to play by their rules, so...”

“Right.” Samut sighed as she pulled her greaves on. “And no-one came for us, so...” She looked at Chandra sidelong. “Jace would have still come, right? Even if you fought?”

“He would have. Him or Ral.” Chandra checked the small, dragon-shaped coin currently lying on the table next to her goggles. A miniature receiver for a much smaller version of Ral Zarek’s planar beacon, that was set to start flashing if they were needed back on Ravnica. “I guess Jenezk was right. Good time to take a break.” Chandra turned back to Samut. “Will you be-?”

“Yes, back to Amonkhet. Briefly. I want to check on the weather contraptions. And see if the excavation has yielded any new wells.” She stood and stretched, rolling her shoulders forward in slow circles. The muscles in her upper arm shifted as she flexed. “You?”

“Back for now. Get a lay of the land, you know?” Chandra inhaled. “Maybe look for Jace.”

“I thought you told him you didn’t want to see him for a while.”

“I said that to Vraska too, and we’ve spent the last couple days trailing after her like baby ducks while she argues with lawyers and guild leaders and every other boring office-dweller on Ravnica. I think if I can stomach that, I can talk to Jace.” Chandra sat by the table and pulled her goggles on. “I got the space I needed. I don’t want to be in a quarrel any more. Not with him.”

Samut sat next to Chandra and put a hand on her shoulder. “You know you still have a right to be angry, right? You should do what makes you happy, but-”

Chandra put a hand over Samut’s. “Thanks. Really. It’s not...I forgive him for not telling me. I don’t think it was right of him or anything, but I understand why, and I appreciate that they came clean to me sooner than later. Vraska...that will take more time. But I want to keep the good friends I have.”

Unfortunately, Jace was not at Vraska’s residence when Chandra returned to Ravnica, nor were either of them at Prahv. Lavinia, looking slightly less tired these days, directed her towards a private clinic where several of the wounded from the undercity mission were being treated.

“Don’t they have their own...way of dealing with these sorts of things? Down in the undercity, I mean.” Chandra asked Zamosk as a nurse admitted them to the upper floor. “This place seems...”

“Ridiculous?” Zamosk nodded, turning aside to let a vedalken nurse push past them with a cart full of cold, mizzium instruments. Chandra had run into the hunter troll outside the building, arguing with the gold-clad sentries for entry inside. “Simic-run, privately Orzhov funded. Stupid expensive, but I guess that weed of a syndicate guild master is footing the bill as apology for sheltering a terrorist in his guild.”

Chandra smirked and nudged the troll in the ribs. “Ridiculous, yeah. But you’re still visiting, huh?”

“Don’t know what you mean. These are my fellow swarm who’re wounded; ‘course I’d visit.”

Trolls, Chandra was learning, did not blush so much as turn slightly more mottled when flustered. To her credit, Zamosk didn’t show any other sign of embarrassment.

“Sure.” Chandra nudged Zamosk again, this time in her arm, which bore a small parcel. “And did you bring enough food for the whole swarm, Ms. Zamosk, or just enough for your favorite little elf?”

Zamosk swatted at Chandra’s head with the parcel. Chandra ducked under the blow.

“Nosy little human,” Zamosk hissed, shaking her head.

“None of my business,” Chandra said cheerily and she straightened up. “Good for you, though.”

Zamosk’s wide mouth curled into a grin as they turned the corner to a less-crowded corridor. Two Kraul flanked the entrance to the first door on the right, alongside Weird A, who was leaning on two short mizzium spears.

“The big bosses are that way,” Weird A gurgled, waving the two kraul to stand down. The insect-warriors chittered at Chandra and Samut, but let them pass into the spacious chamber beyond the doorway. Several white-linen beds were arranged in a circle, each on frames of gold-tinted metal. The floor was stone, patterned to look like veins on the underside of a leaf.

Vraska and Ral were on the far end, in quiet conversation with one of the goblin mechanics from the Gnarrhide mission. Jace was seated right behind them, and glanced up as Chandra and Zamosk entered. A sort-of smile flitted across his face, but then faltered.

Chandra waved and gave her own small smile.

“Finally some interesting people.”

Myczil was grinning up at them from his own bed, where he was propped up, a small book in his lap. The bandages on his head were finally off, and he must have gotten paint from somewhere because his face bore the compound eye markings of the Golgari hunter elves.

“Hey, hunter.” Zamosk stalked over to his side and dropped the parcel on his lap next to the book. How’s your poor little head?” She knocked his shoulder with her forefinger.

“Wishing it was somewhere else,” He replied with a smile and a look up at her. “This cushy bloodsucker lab is starting to lose its charm.”

“It’s a nice room,” Chandra ventured.

Myczil grimaced. “Yes, and secluded from the rest of the clinic so the regular clientele don’t have to bump shoulders with undercity trash.” He closed his book and placed a hand on the parcel. “But at least I don’t have to eat the rejected experiments that pass for food here. Thanks, Zam’”

Zamosk shrugged. “I had leftovers. It’d be a shame to see you waste away even more that you have.” She poked him again, this time in the side, and he snatched at her hand, grinning.

“Watch it, I’m sick.” He swatted back at Zamosk with his close arm, and they exchanges a few mock blows until their hands met on the railing of the bed.

“Ha.” Zamosk had gone mottled again.

“Hm.” Myczil’s makeup wasn’t nearly thorough enough to disguise the color in his own face.

Chandra felt suddenly that the time was ripe for a reunion with Jace and excused herself to go.

“Sorry I didn’t contact you.” Jace stood when he saw her walking over. “I wasn’t sure if you were back on-plane and I-”

“It’s fine,” Chandra said, low, so she didn’t interrupt Ral and Vraska’s conversation. “Just checking in to see if we’d made any progress. I was visiting with Mom.”

“Oh, um. How is she? Everything going well with the new allocation job?”

“Good, but I don’t think she really thinks of it as new at this point.”

“Right.” Jace looked down at his hands. “Krokt, I guess it’s been a while, huh?”

Chandra nodded, glancing around the room. Other than Ral and Vraska, in conversation with the goblin, and Zamosk chatting up Myczil in the corner, everyone else was asleep; the viashino pilot Dialki, Kezmitax, and the surviving kraul, who had a very special bed made up for her that looked like something between a lab table and a fancy easy chair. “Uh, are you helping right now? wanna stretch your legs?”

Jace looked up at her.

“Just around the hallway. Or the courtyard so we’re not in anyone’s way.”

“Oh. Yes, I’ll just-” He touched Vraska lightly on her knuckles. “Hey, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Vraska’s eyes flicked over to Chandra, and a tiny smile bent the line of her mouth. She turned back to Jace and a single tendril on her head curled up to brush his cheek. “Of course. I’ll send Piraza to find you if we finish early.”

Chandra and Jace left the room, walking in silence at first. Slight or not, the seclusion of the corridor did let Chandra and Jace pace a relatively low-traffic path through the clinic. They still got looks from the odd doctor or nurse, but judging from their whispers, they simply either recognized Jace as the former Guildpact, or as someone connected to the Golgari guild leader.

“How are you?”

The question came from both of them simultaneously, Chandra just a half-step behind Jace. They stared at each other, laughed, and Chandra raised an eyebrow.

Jace put his hands up. “Not reading your mind, I swear.”

She smirked. “Then how did you know I was wondering if you read my mind?”

“A friend’s intuition?”

“Doubtful. I’ve seen the kind of danger _your_ intuition gets you into.”

“Alright, that’s fair enough, I guess.” He paused, letting a burly human doctor with a barrel-sized syringe full of red ooze in her hand stalk past them. “Uh, speaking of bad intuition-”

“Baan." Chandra grimaced. "Just say his name. It’s...it happened. I mean, it’s not really alright, but-.”

“It really isn’t.” Jace sighed. “Vraska doesn’t think so either. I...sorry, do you even want to talk about this?”

Chandra frowned. “Yeah. Sort of. Not with her, right now, but I’m trying to maintain the friends I have, and….yeah, I don’t know if we can really be friends if we don’t talk about it.”

“Okay.” Jace patted at his trousers. “That’s fair. Let’s...let’s talk, I guess.”

“I’m pissed off at you.”

Chandra let the comment hang between them for several seconds. Jace just pursed his lips and nodded.

“You’re...I think of you as one of my closest friends in the world.” She shouldered through a door leading to an interior courtyard and stepped out onto a soft, moss-covered walkway. Jace followed after her. “And it hurts that you would have even agreed to keep something from me. It...it does mean something to me that you and Vraska came to me eventually on your own, but, I mean...damn it, Jace, it’s been months!”

“Yes.” Jace’s voice was quiet. “It has been. Much too long. I should have come to you right away. I just...” He trailed off, stopping in the middle of the pathway. High bushes, like some kind of cross between coral and evergreens, shrouded them from outside eyes. “...I was thinking of Vraska.”

“Obviously you were thinking of Vraska,” Chandra said, scowling. “that doesn’t mean...you see how that doesn’t make it okay, right?”

“I do. It’s...it’s an explanation. Not an excuse.” His eyes met hers. “I was wrong to not tell you the truth about Baan, no matter my reasons. it’s just been hard. Since...everything. I still owe you better.”

“It’s not like I think I’m blameless either.” Chandra crossed her arms. “I withdrew from everyone when we needed to be holding each other up. We only got together for funerals or to listen to that dumb dragon Guildpact send everyone on revenge missions. So, I guess I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“Yes, but...” Jace shook his head. “...I did the same thing. I withdrew and our – _my_ coping mechanisms weren’t exactly healthy either, and keeping the truth from you was worse.”

“It was.” Chandra cringed as her voice cracked “I want...I want you to trust me. And I want you to treat me like I’m your teammate, not like someone you have to protect, or lie to.” She took a breath and looked at Jace. “I have your back, you know? No matter what happens and, all I really want is to know that you’ll have my back too. And that means coming to me with stuff like that. Even if you think it will hurt me.”

Jace’s brow wrinkled, but he nodded and smiled at Chandra. “That means a lot to me. _You_ mean a lot to me. And if it’s honesty you want...” He looked back down the hallway. “...you’ll always have it from me. I’ve told Vraska as much. I won’t ever keep you or any of the ‘watch in the dark again.”

“I-thank you. I really want us to be-” Chandra sighed, trying to keep her voice steady. “-You’re like a brother to me. I want you to know that. There’s not a lot that I wouldn’t do for you or for Ajani or Nissa or-”

And then Jace was crying. Not sobbing loudly or wailing but there were tears coming down his cheeks as he nodded.

Chandra stepped in and wrapped her arms around him, putting her own face in his shoulder so he wouldn’t see _her_ tears.

“I’ve really missed you,” He said, not whispering this time. “I didn’t tell Gideon how much he meant to me enough, and Lili...I want to be in your life, as much as I can.”

“It’s okay.” Chandra had her arms wrapped around Jace, pinning his upper arms to his side, but she still felt his hands on her back. “It’s okay. We’re tough. We faced worse things than this and we’re still going.” She looked him in the face, and smudged a tear away with her thumb. “We’ll keep a watch on each other, right?”

“Right.” He embraced her again, and her tears soaked into his cloak.

*

*

*

They ran into Zamosk on the walk back to the recovery room. She was whistling cheerily and swinging her arms, leaving the staff she passed to duck out of the way as they skirted around her. Chandra waved.

“Leaving?”

Zamosk nodded. “Checked in with the big bosses. Nothing new. Appeals stalled out with the Guildpact, or whatever bureaucrats Niv-pissant has doing his dirty work.” She held out a small plastic cube, sealed on one end with a soft film. “Pudding? Myczil doesn’t like ‘em but they’re not bad.” She popped one open and emptied it into her wide maw.

“Thanks.” Chandra accepted one, ignoring a sour look from a passing nurse, and cracked the top. She looked back and for the between Jace and Vraska. “Zam’, you said you’d met-?”

“Vraska’s favorite little consort? A few times.” She reached out with a hand the size of Jace's face and ruffled his hair. “How’s the queen, squirt?”

“Vraska’s _only_ consort, thank you,” Jace mumbled, blushing. His face flickered back to a normal shade for just a second before he dropped the illusion. “How’s _your_ little elf?”

Zamosk just grunted and peeled open another pudding.

Chandra smirked and scooped up some of the yellow custard with her finger. It was decent. The Simic must have been using some kind of fake sugar that left a weird taste on her tongue. Not much of a dinner, especially after mom’s-

“Pudding on your shoe.” Jace pointed down at a pale yellow splotch on toe of Chandra’s boot.

“Fuck.” She bent, grabbing a cloth off a nearby medical cart to clean off the food. She glanced up as she wiped off the glob. The hallway was a light rush of doctors in greens and blues, shambling chimeric orderlies, patients in clean gowns and gold-trimmed black. A man with his hand and shoulder bandaged, several green scratch marks peeking out on his wrist and up his arm-

Chandra was on her feet running at the man before she fully realized what she was doing. She smacked Zamosk on the elbow as she passed.

“There. Hot guy in black. Myc's bug bites on his hand.”

Zamosk took a beat, and Chandra passed her by seven steps before she heard the troll growl and barrel down the hallway behind her.

The man-vampire hadn’t noticed her yet. He was berating a small vedalken nurse.

“-been itching and burning for days! This is unacceptable!”

“M-mr. Slavomir there is only so much we can do without knowing _where_ in the city you were bitten. The number of insect species in the tenth district alone-”

Whatever the nurse had to say about insect species in the tenth district was droned out by a grunt and shout of surprise as Chandra tackled Slavomir around the waist, dragging them both down to the cold hospital floor.

Slavomir screeched and rolled free of Chandra’s grasp, pulling himself up on one knee. “How dare-” his cry of outrage trailed off as recognition rolled over his face.

“You! How? This is a private-” This time his exclamation was cut off by Zamosk flying in knee-first, lifting Slavomir clear off the ground and sending him sprawling into the wall.

Someone down the hallway screamed. Others started running. One of the nurses was backed up against a doorway, looking outraged.

“This is a _hospital,”_ she hissed, as she inched away.

“Good.” Chandra staggered to her feet. “Won’t have to drag him as far when we’re done.”

Slavomir peeled himself out of the small vampire-shaped crater in the wall and started to hobble away, pushing hospital staff aside and throwing down a cart full of janitorial supplies down onto the floor. Chandra skipped over a spilled patch of cleaning solution and broken glass and sprinted after him. Zamosk, bellowing, sped past her and snatched at Slavomir’s cape. She managed to grab a fold and yanked him backwards. This time Slavomir leapt with the blow, and planted an elbow into the side of Zamosk’s jaw. The troll grunted and fell back, releasing the cape.

Chandra held out her palm, and a sphere of fire spun into being in front of her palm. She flexed her fingers and the projectile leapt from her hand and zipped down the corridor. It struck Slavomir in the shoulder, but he rolled with the blast and stumbled sideways into an adjoining corridor.

Chandra leapt after him, lighting another fireball as she rounded the corner

She swore. This hall was full of people, doctors and patients. Slavomir flashed a shit-eating grin over his shoulder and ducked into the crowd. She followed at a run, stopping just long enough to make sure Zamosk got back up on her feet. Then she dove into the crowd, smothering the ball of flame to smoke in her fist.

Luckily, Slavomir left a clear trail through the hallways as simic and patient alike flung themselves at the walls of the corridors, or were shouldered aside. Chandra was able to clear the odd cart he overturned easily enough. Unfortunately he was much fast than Chandra, and it was only a matter of time until-

Chandra turned another corner and found herself staring down a long hallway, less crowded, that terminated in an intersection with a large window, paned over with green-tinted glass. Outside the day was fading to late afternoon.

And Slavomir was barreling towards the glass.

Chandra re-ignited her fireball and flung it up over the heads of the frantic bystanders. It _ping-_ ed off a panel in the ceiling and hit Slavomir along the side of his face. He spun around in the hallway intersection and stumbled, but kept his feet.

Chandra closed. Ten feet. Five feet.

Slavomir thrust a hand into his sleeve and ripped out his golden blade, swinging in a wild arc at Chandra’s face. She slid under the blow and sank her fist, still trailing smoke, into his stomach. He gasped, but brought the hilt of his dagger down on her shoulder, hard enough to crack her armor. The numbing cold of his ghost-magic seized her shoulder and made the arm go limp. Chandra grit her teeth and grappled him with her free arm, digging her heels in and driving him up off the floor. He tried to stab her but she got her hand around his wrist and held the weapon at his side as she bulldozed him down the hallway and into the clinic lobby.

The rush led them straight into a row of metal chairs affixed to the ground, and they flipped over the seats in a smoking, flailing pile of limbs. Patients, mostly richly-dressed Syndicate types, gaped and cowered behind their thrull pets or the virusoid door guards.

Slavomir got in a lucky hit to Chandra’s gut, which winded her long enough for him to scramble to his feet. He rushed out through the hospital door-

-and face-first into a steel-blue gauntlet.

Slavomir flipped under the blow and hit the floor. Lavinia stepped forward and planted a boot on his chest. She glanced up at Chandra.

“Who’s-?”

“Slavomir,” Chandra said breathlessly, stomping her own foot down on the vampire’s wrist as he fumbled for his fallen dagger. “The eternal guy. We, uh...we just caught him, as you can see.”

“Krokt.” Lavinia was staring down at the Vampire’s face. “This is...this is Slavomir Zoltan.” She glanced around at the bystanders, who were watching, pointing, and muttering. “ _This_ is who you’ve been after?”

“Should I know who this is?” Chandra pressed her foot down, and Slavomir grunted.

“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Zamosk ambled up, placing a leather-bound foot on Slavomir’s left shoulder. He swore and tried to thrash, but they had him pinned completely. “We’ve got him, and now we don’t need the paper pushers’ say-so to go after him.”

Lavinia frowned. “About that-” She patted a scroll hanging by a silvery chain at her hip. “I was on my way here to deliver the bad news to the guild leaders. Their request for Golgari investigation into the Syndicate has been explicitly denied. If you try and take him now...” She looked down, clearly unsure. To her credit, she did not make a move to let the vampire rise.

“You gotta be kidding.” Zamosk growled, pressing down even harder. Slavomir groaned in pain as she dug her heel in. “Look, I’m leaving with him whether you approve or not.” She leaned over Lavinia. “I don’t really give a shake what you or that piece of paper have to say.”

“Nor do I.”

Vraska came striding out into the lobby, with Jace at her shoulder, and Ral a few paces behind, flanked by the kraul and weird escort.

A soft golden light glowed behind Vraska’s eyes. The surrounding crowd averted their gaze. Most started to disperse.

“We are here and we have you outnumbered, lawmage.” She nodded at the kraul, and they flitted forward, shouldering their harpoons. “Zamosk, take him away quickly. You know where.”

Zamosk stepped forward and put both hands on Slavomir’s arms, pulling him up off the ground. Lavinia and Chandra staggered away as the vampire was yanked out from under their boots. Slavomir made one last attempt to struggle free, but the kraul each dealt him a sharp blow to his head. He slumped in Zamosk’s arms.

Lavinia put her hand to her sword, but stepped aside as Zamosk and the Kraul dragged Slavomir away.

“Go with them.” Ral nodded toward the door.

“Sure thing, boss man.” Weird A shouldered its spear and trudged out after the golgari.

“Guildmasters.” Lavinia turned to Vraska and Ral. “This is a mistake. When the Orzhov catch wind of this-”

“The wind’s caught,” Chandra muttered, watching a few of the Orzhov patrons retreat not into the hospital, but out into the streets. “Vraska, are you sure about this?”

The glow in Vraska’s eyes vanished as she looked to Chandra.

“No." Her voice was a whisper, just for herself and Chandra. "But I need to act as if I am.”

“We need to see Tomik, now.” Ral looked anxious. His hands were balled into fists at his side. “If he hears what happened without context-”

“Give me an hour.” Lavinia looked around the clinic. “I can get you a writ of arrest for public disturbance and endangerment of health service workers. Something legitimate to bring to the Orzhov. Please. We can’t have a guild feud like this. Not now.”

Vraska looked down her nose at Lavinia. “An hour. I meet with Guild Master Vrona with or without you, arrester.”

“I-”

Vraska swept past Lavinia. Ral offered her a shrug as he followed the gorgon out. Jace apologized profusely and ran down the street after Zamosk. Chandra and Lavinia were left in the lobby, surrounded by a slowly irate circle of clinic staff.

“Uh, rough day, huh?”

“Stuff it up your ass, Nalaar.” Lavinia swore and strode out of the lobby after Vraska. Chandra hurried out after her, and quite nearly ran head-first into Samut.

“Oh, hey.”

“Hey...” Samut looked up and down the street, and the still-puzzled crowds and two parties departing quickly in opposite directions. “...what happened here?”

* * *

Lavinia met them with fourteen minutes to spare, still agitated and tapping a scroll against her leg.

“Misdemeanor mischief,” She explained, handing it to Vraska. “I don’t know how far this will go in pacifying the Syndicate’s anger, but for what it’s worth-”

Vraska snatched the scroll up and swept past Lavinia into the temporary post-invasion cathedral headquarters of the Syndicate. Lavinia raised an eyebrow, but fell in line behind the guild leaders, next to Chandra and Samut.

“What did you do with him?” She whispered to Chandra as they walked through the main cathedral to the back offices.

“It’s need to know information,” Chandra said.

“I feel like I need to know.”

“Ask them, then,” Chandra said, nodding at Ral and Vraska. “This is their show.”

Lavinia grunted.

The guards at the door to the upper offices were reluctant to admit anyone, but Vraska shouldered through, and the rest of them followed her lead. The main floor was mostly empty at this late hour, save for a few humans in clerk’s robes taking notes at their desks, and a handful of waist-high thrulls running scrolls and jangling boxes from office to office. Vraska strode past all of them and rapped twice on Tomik’s door.

Nothing. Chandra looked up and down the wall of doors to either side of Tomik’s.

“Maybe he went home?”

“Unlikely,” Ral grumbled.

“The guildmaster is out.”

They all turned. A woman was approaching them from behind, ambling briskly along with the help of a grey-wood cane, and attended to by two tall thrulls with fingers that ended in golden spikes. Her hair was pulled back and she was dressed in sharp black and white. A single silver ring split her lower lip, which Chandra found strangely transfixing.

“Teysa.” Lavinia stepped forward. “We need to speak to Tomik.” She glanced at the clerks, a few of whom, obviously bored, were eyeing them with a faint interest. “You as well. It’s a delicate matter.”

“Is this about the appeal?” Teysa’s eyes drifted across the small party. Her eyes met Chandra’s briefly, and Chandra felt a small chill run down her spine. Not from fear, but more like...like the chill when she’d done something she knew mom or dad would have disapproved of. Teysa passed their group and proceeded along the side of the wide room, past several large office doors, all made of polished black wood and decorated in gold. “Take the loss, guild masters. You can’t expect the syndicate to open its doors to investigation based on a scuffle in the sewers.”

“This is important, Teysa.” Ral started after her. “Where is he?”

“Private gathering of the Uveczi family. They’ve asked him to personally oversee arbitration of an inheritance dispute, and it was in guild interest that he go.” Teysa did not look back, but inclined her head just slightly to the side. “An _unexpected_ inheritance arbitration, or he’d have told you, I’m sure. The ink needs to be dry on these contracts before anyone’s blood has had time to run cold.”

“When will he be back?” Ral asked, exasperated.

Teysa smiled (looking almost...sympathetic?) and stopped at a door towards the end of the open space. There was no gold-leaf on this one, but the carving was intricate and polished so it gleamed almost like stone.

“Indisposed for the rest of the evening. For what it’s worth, Ral, I don’t think he likes spending so much time away from home any more than you like it.” She returned to the door, fishing an ornate silver key from her pocket. “I recommend you try again in the morning.”

“We have the vampire.”

Every eye went to Samut. Ral and Lavinia looked horrified. Vraska cast a glare in the direction of the clerks, who were hopefully out of earshot.

“Slavomir. We have evidence he was behind an ongoing scheme using the bodies of my people to commit acts of violence against your city. We found him in allegiance with a creature belonging to the Dimir guild, which pretended to be a goblin but was in fact made of worms. I have inferred this to be an extremely bad thing. If this is something you feel is remotely of consequence to your guild, you should go find Tomik.”

There was a brief silence. Vraska was now frowning at Samut, as was Lavinia.

“What?” Samut glared at the rest of them. “Are we solving this problem or not?”

Teysa had paused, key mere inches from her office door. When she turned, Chandra could not have said what the expression on her face meant.

“Oh?”

Ral rubbed his eyes. “Look, Teysa-”

“Guild masters, I would be remiss to let you go without refreshment. Will you join me for tea?” She pointed, and her thrulls departed, one shambling back the way it had come, the other walking out toward the main exit to the cathedral downstairs. Teysa slid the key into a bolthole decorated to match, and strode into her office.

“Come in. Shut the door behind you.”

Lavinia stopped short of the door. “Teysa, I-”

“Get in here, all of you, and shut the door.”

Teysa’s office was everything that Tomik’s wasn’t: large where his was narrow, ostentatious where his had been sparsely decorated, and neat, with every golden instrument and immaculate tome precisely in place. It was like Jenezk’s office, if the placement of everything in Jenezk’s office had been calculated to make Chandra feel intimidated. She almost doubled back to find a mat to wipe her boots on, but Samut hustled her through the doorway.

“We’re not looking for a fight,” Vraska said, taking a seat in the middle of the office. It was the biggest chair, and she settled into it as if she owned the place, without even a glance at the décor. “All we want are answers. None of us think the whole guild of deals would be so stupid as to bankroll whatever scheme he’s part of, and your cooperation would go a long way in proving-”

“I knew you had Slavomir almost an hour ago," Teysa cut in. "Consider it the latest in a long line of worst-kept secrets in this city. Quite frankly, I think he can rot in whatever pit you’ve dumped him in.” Teysa crossed the office to a broad oaken desk. “I’m more interested in what you have on the Dimir. And their worms”

Ral and Vraska exchanged a look, clearly nervous about Teysa having this new information.

“You first,” Lavinia said into their silence. She had her arms crossed, and was raising a tired eyebrow at Teysa, like she’d seen this game before.

Teysa tapped her key against a ring on her pinky. There was a sound like a harp and the key shifted into a new shape. She unlocked a drawer on her desk and withdrew a small crystal jar. There was some blue liquid inside, squirming around-

“Krokt” Lavinia took a step back from the desk. “are those…?”

“Worms. A waiter from Pivlichino’s tried to serve me these at a senate dinner, right before the invasion. A new strain of an old Dimir beast. But if you were dealing with a...a shapeshifter, was it?” She looked over at Samut with what appeared to be genuine, sparkle-eyed interest. “Made of something like this, I’d wager?”

“Exactly that,” Samut said.

Teysa nodded and turned away. The sparkle in her eye seemed to fade with the shift. “Then it sounds like some of that old strain remains in the world. An interesting connection. Do you still have it?”

Ral ran hand through his hair. Chandra realized it was much more silver-streaked than it had been when she’d first laid eyes on him, months ago. “Yes. What portion of it didn’t burn up or consume itself. He gestured at the jar on the desk. “You said these ones were...different?”

“Yes, though related to the apparently not-so-dearly departed Lupul worm. Meant to be passed after about a month, but allow for manipulation of an individual remotely for the duration. It happened in a private dining room, so Pivlic was able to keep it quiet.”

Vraska frowned. “How do you know Pivlic isn’t being paid by the Dimir? Or under their control?”

“I am still a first-rate advokist,” Teysa said with a cocky smile. “I can tell when someone is giving an answer under influence.”

“And if he’s just lying?" Lavinia asked. "That imp knows plenty of legal magic as well.”

“We all have to keep a circle of people we trust in this world, or else spend our lives stabbing at shadows.” Teysa tapped her cane against the ground. “Pivlic is in my circle. If that’s not good enough for you, I do have more tangible proof. The Dimir are not impregnable to counter-intelligence, just resilient to it.” She took a seat, finally, and smiled mildly at all of them.

“And?” Ral asked, after several seconds of silence.

Teysa looked up at the nearest shelf, smirking. “Several decades ago I took over a case from a subordinate; we represented a Dimir agent who didn’t think I knew she was a Dimir agent. A bit of subtle verity-work and she became my semi-willing informant. I’ve been collecting such clients since, including a few counter-intelligence plants that the House has sent me our way. The network rarely yields deep secrets, but I can glean useful information now and then. They’re working to infiltrate the highest levels of my guild; to take advantage of the fact that leadership is now flesh and blood, instead of decrepit spirit. If you all are willing to act with the least bit of subtlety, I can keep tricking them into thinking they’ve succeeded.”

“Why?” Ral asked, “They failed, and you’re going to do what they want anyways?”

“It’s that or they find another high-ranking Orzhov to act as their puppet,” Teysa returned. “Do you want them feeding these worms to Tomik? He’s safer being manipulated by me than he is if I’m openly protecting him.”

Ral collapsed into a chair next to Vraska. He leaned forward running a hand across his jaw, and over his mouth.

“...is Tomik in danger?”

Teysa smiled. Again, softly, but this time with a single arched eyebrow. “Always. He’s a guild leader. For what it’s worth, I have him receiving regular physicals with the discreet purpose of making sure they haven’t compromised him in any way. I brought in a private doctor from Utvara for that very reason. I swear to you I have his best interests at heart.”

“Right.” Ral sat back. His eyes weren’t focusing on anything in particular.

Chandra coughed. “Best interests or not, I don’t see the point of playing along with these jerks if they’re up to no good.”

“The Dimir game only works on fools arrogant enough to think they can’t be duped.” Teysa’s gaze cut right through the room. Chandra flinched. **“** I’ve spent my life around those who’ve tried to dupe me, and even a few who’ve succeeded. I know the game being played here, and I know enough to play along. You’ll do the same for now if you want to find out who’s trying to stir up all this trouble.”

“If they’re as good at stirring up trouble and knowing things as you all seem to think,” Samut ventured, “How do you know they won’t find out about this meeting here? It seems to me people as important as you all don’t meet for no reason.”

Teysa gestured toward the door. “The second clerk you passed on your way in here is a former Gnat Alley pickpocket turned Dimir informant. He will no doubt be reporting your presence here as soon as his shift ends. Luckily for all of us some very clumsy construction workers are going to drop a pallet of bricks on his head before he leaves this block.”

A silence fell on the room. Teysa leaned back in her chair. The worms in the jar shuddered, and Chandra (along with the rest of the room, minus Teysa), stared at it.

“Why didn’t you bring this to someone sooner?” Vraska asked.

“It was unclear we had a common interest until now,” Teysa said. “Now we very plainly do, and given who we’re dealing with-” She tapped the jar on her desk with the tip of her cane “-we need to move quickly. If these attacks and the attempts to pin the damage done on the Golgari are related to the Dimir manipulation of my guild, I want them stopped.”

“I would have hope the welfare of the city would have been motivation enough for you to act,” Vraska commented with no small amount of acid in her voice.

“I _only_ act out of the interest of the city’s welfare,” Teysa snapped. There was a creasing of her face and for an instant she looked truly, deeply angry. Then it had passed, and she just looked patiently annoyed. “I am trying to helm a machine that has preyed on this city from a privileged position for over ten thousand years. Its fingers are now my fingers, filthy with the handling of more unsavory dealings than any of you could possibly know of. That I did not spend my energy on a task I hoped you had well in hand should not be a surprise to you.”

“Well we’ve been asking for help for some time now.” Ral tapped his gauntlet impatiently. Sparks were jumping between his nails. “So what’s the next step?”

Teysa templed her fingers. “Take me to Slavomir. I’ll perform the necessary interrogations and find out his collaborators. Then I will be taking him back to the syndicate.”

“He’s staying in our custody.” Vraska said. “He’ll answer to Golgari justice.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Teysa leaned forward. “If anything happens to Slavomir outside of the courts, Tomik’s authority will be called into question. I can’t have that.”

“You said you were happy to leave him in a pit.” Ral said, grimacing.

“Others in the syndicate won’t be. Do you want the vampire families deciding they would rather depose Tomik and install someone who will better look after them when they’re pinched off the street?”

“I’m more worried about Slavomir going after Tomik himself if we let him go, Teysa. He knows about our relationship.”

“Yes, well, _you_ were the one who decided it was a good idea to arrest Slavomir in public. If you’re not pleased with your own actions-”

“Pleased?” Ral growled. “This is Tomik, Teysa. This is the love of my- I thought you cared about him? And now you’re gambling with his life. Is he just a tool to you?”

“You are the _only_ one in this city who cares about him more than I do,” Teysa said. “I can’t do more than I have to demonstrate that.”

Ral scowled.

“ _If_ we decide to trust you,” Vraska cut in, “what would you need?”

“ _If_ ,” Teysa echoed, not exactly disgusted, but more insulted. “Do you know I’ve collaborated on the salvation of this plane at least three times in my lifetime? And here I am treated with hostility when I offer my help with a trifle.”

“I think suspicion is justified, in light of how little the syndicate assisted against the invasion under your rule.”

“The Orzhov whose consciences drove them to help were not kept from helping,” Teysa returned coolly. “And if you want to complain that someone was left over in the aftermath of the invasion who still holds the good graces of the less magnanimous members of my guild...well.” Teysa folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “I suppose I can’t force you to accept pro bono aid.” She smiled lightly.

“No,” Vraska said, quietly. “You can’t. And I don’t think much of working with someone who’s conscience _didn’t_ compel them to intervene.”

Teysa blinked, and the smile fell from her lips. She glanced down, just a flick of the eyes that Chandra only barely caught, at her lap, then back at the rest.

“Mistakes all around, I’d argue. For all of us. Before and while things were going to the pits.”

Vraska returned her gaze, not exactly glaring, but giving a look that made the air feel heavy.

“For goodness sake,” Lavinia muttered. “Guildmasters. I vouch for Teysa and her good intentions.” She lay a hand on Teysa’s desk. “Smug though she bears them.”

Vraska and Ral exchanged glances.

“Fine,” Ral said at last, throwing up his hands. “But you didn’t answer the question. What else do you need from us?”

Teysa was still watching Lavinia. With a slow, smooth turn of her head she addressed the guild leaders. “Information. Witnesses. Access to those who have encountered this new batch of eternals. Anyone who you’ve captured who can speak to their activities, Slavomir included.”

Ral pursed his lips a moment, then sighed.

“We have two in custody. Ghost-possessed eternals. Orzhov debtors as far as we can tell, but they’re tight-lipped.”

“Yes, Orzhov contract magic will do that.” Teysa plucked up a quill from her desk and began making notes. “Bring me to them. _I’ll_ loosen their lips.”

“Any of our witnesses who want to talk, you’ll have access to,” Vraska said, though the frown had not left her face. She glanced back at Chandra and Samut. “ _Only_ you. The Orzhov ones obviously, the others only if they want to.”

“I want to,” Samut replied. Chandra just nodded.

“Splendid. Send me a list as soon as you can.” Teysa punctuated something on the paper in front of her. “With any luck we’ll catch a bigger fish red-handed at the next attack. And with a little more luck find out who in the Dimir Slavomir’s been working with. Teysa eyed the door, then the company collected in her office. “And how high they rank.”

A silence passed around the room. When Ral finally spoke, his voice echoed like a rumble of thunder.

“What do you mean?”

Teysa looked, for the first time, just a bit unsure of herself. Chandra was sure she caught another flicker of her eyes to the door behind them.

“The Dimir believe I’m following their desires not because they fed me their little nightmare-worms, but because I am, quite literally, taking guidance from our resident shapeshifter guild master himself.”

“What.” Lavinia and Vraska said it together, with shock and ice, respectively.

“Does Tomik know?” Ral said, a beat later.

“You can’t possibly trust him,” Vraska hissed.

Lavinia clasped a hand to her jaw. “Teysa, you know better than-”

“Of course I do,” Teysa interrupted, “And of course he doesn’t,” Teysa said with a weary patience, looking to Ral. “He has given no willing indication that he was aware of the plot to control me-” She flicked the jar with an edge of acid in her voice, “-nor is he an easy creature to read, but when I confronted him with a false belief that the worms came from a rogue element in his guild, he was entirely too willing to agree and guarantee he would root out the culprits in order to secure my cooperation and my willingness to take his consultation on the best way to put Tomik in power.”

“ _His_ plan?” Ral neatly jumped out of his chair. “Teysa-!”

“A plan that coincided with an end I was already working towards, Ral.” Teysa gestured with her forefinger and he sank, frowning, back into his seat. “I don’t plan to let Tomik come to harm by Dimir design.”

“But you think he was behind the attempt to control you?” Vraska was tapping her knee through her dress. “And behind the new Lupul worms?”

“I’ve met with Lazav over a dozen times, both on behalf of the Obzedat and for Kaya and Tomik. He is no fool. He knows his guild inside and out, even the malcontents like Etrata who want him dead. I take the fact that he was able to deliver to me two ‘culprits’ of the dinner incident to be the most damning bit of evidence I have against him, though it is of course useless in actually acting against him. All the same, if members of his guild were actually planning to feed a high-ranking guild member mind control worms, he would have known. Furthermore, if members of the House Dimir are conspiring with terrorists, he knows about it, and the fact that he hasn’t reached out for help means either he thinks he has it under control, which he obviously doesn’t, or-”

“-Or he didn’t expect us to find out in the first place,” Chandra finished, drawing the eyes in the room to herself again.

Teysa nodded. “Bad either way. And extremely suspicious now that we have multiple instances of this ancient Dimir...animal in our possession.”

Vraska grunted. “Slavomir will tell us.”

“He might,” Teysa said, still writing. “Or he might stay silent for months while more attacks unfold around you because he is part of an ancient race of exceptionally resilient creatures. His being in your captivity presents us with a rare opportunity for me to interrogate him without bringing retribution down on Tomik.” She threw in a sidelong look at Ral, who perked up at that last bit. “And releasing him to Orzhov custody, _once I have enough evidence against him_ , will look good for Tomik, once I can arrange it to seem that he was the one who negotiated his return to the Syndicate.”

“Explain that part to me,” Samut interrupted. “You want Tomik to look like a hero for freeing this villain, but you acknowledge that he needs to be locked up. You think your guild will be pleased to have him back, but you’re still planning to disappoint them by gathering evidence against him. We’ve been asking for your solidarity in questioning these vampires for weeks.”

Teysa’s quill paused mid-scratch. “Fair question. Going after every vampire in the syndicate was one thing. Going after an individual is trivial by comparison.” Teysa smiled. It was a reassuring smile. “An easy matter of turning the other vampires against him. Impossible for any of you, but for anyone who understands the family business...suffice it to say, the families won't have a problem with me spit-roasting Slavomir if I they perceive me as doing so as a favor to them. I just need the time to weave that perception.” The smile turned a little crueler. “I’m a little disappointed, if I might be candid with you all. Slavomir does have the subtlety of a goblin grenade, but I’d thought he was at least smart enough to not get wrapped up in something as foolish as _this_.”

“Everyone outside your guild seems quite convinced the Orzhov wouldn’t turn on each other so easily,” Samut said, placing a hand on the back of Ral’s chair. She looked up at Teysa. “What makes you think it will happen for _you_?”

“No one becomes master of tithes without committing _some_ indiscretions with Orzhov money, and being very good at hiding those indiscretions. If I can coax those confessions out of him I can locate exactly where he’s been cheating other syndicate members. Syndicate members who will then latch onto anything to cast him out, such as, say, collaborating with Dimir terrorists. That’s _if_ you let me interrogate him. _If_ we can cooperate and pool our information on this matter.”

Vraska exhaled. “Fine. But Tomik gets looped in once you have enough to prosecute Slavomir to Orzhov's satisfaction.”

Teysa nodded. “Done. As I said, he’ll be making the formal request to have the little bloodsucker returned. He can’t be seen as anything but sympathetic to Slavomir until we have gathered an airtight case against him.”

“As for the next attack...my network has been silent for the past week,” Vraska continued. “I’m keeping every ear I can to the ground for any whiff of the next attack but whoever is left has folded in on themselves. We’ll need to cast a tighter net.”

“Anything my own people hear is yours,” Teysa said. She glanced over at Lavinia. “And you?”

Lavinia stiffened. “The Senate has initiated no official investigation-”

“You know what I mean, Lav.”

“What _does_ she mean, Lavinia?” Vraska said the name with a tone like ice. “ _Are_ the Azorius investigating this after all?”

“No, it’s...” Lavinia bit her lip. “...I have my own informant as well. A personal informant. Keeps an ear to the ground for strange happenings in the undercity. Reaches out to me when...well, when they feel like it, honestly.”

“And will they?” Ral asked. “Feel like it, that is?”

“They don’t want the undercity under outside threat any more than we do.”

“What have they turned up?” Vraska asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Nothing, or I’d have brought it to you,” Lavinia said, exasperated. “She lets me know if there’s anything worth my time, and then we meet, and we haven’t met for some time now.”

“She...” Teysa echoed with a bit of amusement in her voice. “This information...right from the witch’s lips, I take it?”

Whatever that meant, the comment made Lavinia’s cheeks go pink.

“I trust her, Teysa.”

Teysa leaned back, and templed her fingers. “And I trust you. Despite your unprofessional methods.” She grinned as Lavinia shot her a weary look. “Guildleaders, I hope that suffices?”

Ral and Vraska exchanged looks.

“Covert action against the Dimir...not a trivial leap to take,” Ral offered. “They’re well-integrated with the surface and the undercity communities.”

Vraska smiled, “No-one ever said being responsible for the welfare of the world would be easy.”. She rose. “Make what preparations you need, then.” She turned to Samut and Chandra. “This will be delicate. As always. Are you both-?”

“We’re here until the end,” Samut said, flatly. Chandra gave a quick jerk of her head.

“Splendid. Don’t come here again until this is all over.” Teysa scrawled something on a sheet of parchment in front of her. “Send for me when you have your guests ready to be questioned. If you here anything that necessitates we abandon this plan, reply to this note in the affirmative-”

Teysa paused, and inclined her head ever so slightly toward the window behind her. There was a lull, then-

_CRASH_

-the sound of something heavy and hard hitting the street outside. A second later, a man screamed.

“That’s our cue to finish.” Teysa held out the letter. “I recommend you all use the exit to the rear of the cathedral. My thrull outside will escort you.”

Vraska rose first, plucking the note from Teysa’s hand and sweeping out of the room, with Ral close behind. Lavinia sighed and nodded to Teysa.

Looking forward to working with you again, baroness.”

“As always, arrester.”

Lavinia started out the door. Samut made to follow, but paused when Chandra didn’t move from her spot on the wall.

“I have a few questions, actually,” Chandra said.

That got a look of mild surprise from Teysa, but she nodded. “I’ll allow it. It’s alright, Lavinia.”

“I’ll stay,” Samut added.

Lavinia paused a half-second, but nodded, and closed the door behind her. Samut took a beat, then leaned up against it, folding her arms.

“I don’t practice as an Advokist any longer.” Teysa rose from behind her desk and ambled over to the bookshelves on her cane, inspecting the wall next to Chandra. “but when I did, my rates for consultation were quite a lot more than either of you could afford, and my time hasn’t gotten cheaper since.” She pulled down a book, and it fell open in her hand. She rested her cane against the shelf and started to flick through it. The pages were ancient, but fluttered gracefully under her fingers.

“I’ll be quick then,” Chandra said. “Lavinia may trust you, but I’ve seen people fuck with the trust of others one too many times to just take you at your word.”

“Alright.” Teysa arrived at the page she was searching for, and scanned it a full minute in silence. When she looked up again, her expression made Chandra think Teysa had forgotten she was still there. “What’s it like, on the world you come from?”

“...What?”

Teysa’s eyes trailed down Chandra, all the way to her boots, then back up again. “The world you were born on. Or the one you live on now. Tell me what it’s like.”

“Um...” Chandra looked over at Samut, who shrugged. “It’s...nice. A city, like Ravnica. Well, not _like_ Ravnica. It’s a lot nicer. Fewer people like...” Rather than finish the sentence, Chandra waved vaguely at the office around her. “Few enough that we can manage them.”

Teysa turned on Samut. “And yours?”

“Where I come from is not a curiosity for you to indulge in,” Samut replied.

“No, I suppose not.” Teysa smiled, and returned her gaze to the book. “But if you’ll indulge me another way, imagine if I were planning to to endanger the place you call home. Planning to endanger the people in it. What would you do?”

“I don’t need to imagine that kind of malice,” Samut tapped the handle of her blade. “And I’d strike you dead where you stand.”

Chandra didn’t answer, but ignited a miniature fireball above her pointer finger.

Teysa did not even look up from her book.

“I myself am surrounded by those who would throw the people of Ravnica into a meat grinder if they thought more gold and power would come out the other side of the crank.” She turned the page, and tapped a passage with the back of her knuckle. “Many with the means to act on those ambitions. They’d let whole districts burn to ash if they felt the profit was worth the paperwork involved. I have an immense fondness for my world, as it is the only one I will ever know, and I have a very distinct interest in it _not_ turning to ash. _I_ am no great warrior. I will no be striking anyone dead, and if I did there are a dozen more vipers in the nest to take the place of the first.”

She closed the book with a crisp clap of pages. “So I’ve nestled in with the vipers. I sleep among them and take the same comforts they take, and watch them lay their schemes. My fangs are the same as theirs: ambition and a desire for my own comfort, unclouded by self-doubt. All that separates me from the rest is my understanding that for my own comfort to be sustainable, I must first see to the well-being of the world.”

Teysa looked up at them, and in the same moment brought the book down into her other hand with a slap so loud that even Samut flinched. “You’d strike a villain dead, and I applaud that. If the world was full of people like you, with your power and conscience, it would be a better world for everyone. But on a world like this you strike one snake dead and the rest will know you as their enemy, and hatch schemes where you cannot see. I must work with subtler tools. When I see a scheme about to hatch I convince the other vipers to swallow the eggs. This keeps them at each other’s throats, until the day when I can strip them of their fangs. And sometimes I must let a scheme hatch, though it pains me to see it more venom loosed on the city.”

“So you’re a martyr?” Samut asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Teysa laughed, and they flinched again. It was unexpectedly...loud? “I reject the term outright.”

“All for your comfort, then?” Chandra asked, folding her arms.

“Partly for comfort. Partly to prove every dead idiot who used to lead this guild wrong.” She ran a thumb along the spine of the book, and tapped the cover with her slender fingers. “Partly, if you’ll believe it, because I don’t enjoy seeing the people of the city living in a perpetual machine of exploitation.”

Chandra pursed her lips. She was uncomfortably aware of how dry they’d become since morning. “I’m not sure I do believe it.”

“And you’re right to be dubious.” Teysa smirked, and gave Chandra another head-to-boot look.

“There’s always someone,” Chandra said. “A mastermind who’s pulling everyone’s strings and who walks away laughing when the dust settles. You say it’s Lazav, and Vraska’s worried enough about her people to take your word on Lavinia’s, but that’s too obvious. It’s never the one you suspect.”

Another rough laugh. “You don’t think I’m clever enough to be an obvious choice?” Teysa set the book down, and inspected the fingertips of her gloves. “Though I _am_ inclined to agree that Lazav is a disappointingly... _obvious_ mastermind.” She peeled one glove off, exposing her arm up to her bicep, which was, unexpectedly taut. Chandra swallowed.

“Y...You say you’re scheming from the nest. Fine. I, uh...I believe that, but what _do_ you get out of sticking your neck out for us like this?”

“Fair question.” Teysa draped the glove over her desk and peeled the other, laying them side by side. “I get peace. _I_ get one less saboteur trying to shove their filthy hands into the affairs out guild. I scheme, yes, but these are schemes of self-preservation. The mastermind, whoever it is, is over my own head, and all I want are the strings cut. You’re looking for someone out to profit, well...” Teysa spread her hands at the office, her fingers flexing out from her palms. “...I did my profiting well before you were even born.”

Chandra could only nod, unable to think of what to say next.

“Powerful people always want more.” Samut said into the lull.

“Yes.” Teysa smiled at them, teeth bared. “Always. So now it comes back to trust. You stayed behind, maybe thinking I would do something to prove my intentions. Something to earn your trust. I will do no such thing. I’m not a dog that performs tricks on command. You know who trusts me. You’ve worked with them. So you can believe that I’m the one whose schemes you want to be a part of, or you can step aside and let it all sort itself out.”

Chandra looked to Samut. Samut was looking dead at Teysa, unblinking, mouth neutral, breathing slowly. Her arms were crossed, and one hand was tapping out a rhythm on her upper arm.

“Hazoret would say that at some point we must grit our teeth and plunge ahead, or drown in the mire of our own indecision,” She said at last. “I’ll take this risk.”

“Fine.” Chandra sighed. “This city truly is fucked, isn’t it? Nothing to be done but concede to work with the ones who’ve got all the gold and power.”

“The rules are written that way for now,” Teysa conceded, with a contemplative look. “Re-writing them is a slow process. Trust me, I’ve been at it for almost a century. And the outside interferences haven’t helped.” She glanced meaningfully between Samut and Chandra. “But I’ve gotten my shining protege into a place to expedite change, if only we can remove those obstacles he cannot deal with directly.”

“You think he can do that?” Samut asked.

“Tomik is the sort of person this guild needs to see in command. Not of the great families. At the forefront because of his skills and hard work. Truly, genuinely concerned with the order of the city, and that the order be for the good of the people. I could lead and lead well, I’m sure, but with my family connections, with what I am willing to do that Tomik is not...my relationship with the syndicate is very different from his. I can knock out most obstacles to his reforms just by acting like the greedy parasite the city expects me to be. The wicked advisor taking out rivals to her role? Who would think twice about my motivations?” Teysa sat back in her chair. “Besides, I’ve never been one for fame.”

“That’s...very candid of you,” Chandra managed. “What makes _you_ trust _us_?”

“Like you said, this city is fucked.” Teysa turned her chair to face the Tenth, a collection of lights and shadows in the settling dusk. “Any fool who sticks around to help make it better when they have the option of leaving it molder is a fool I trust.”

* * *

“You seem anxious today.”

“I guess I am. Big job coming up soon. Possibly. I mean, it’s all been one long job but...it really feels like it’ll be ramping up to a finish soon.”

“Hm.” Jenezk shifted in her seat. She had taken the backless stool today, while Chandra reclined on the sofa. The noon sun straight down on them, from a wide stretch of blue between the clouds “How are you feeling about being done, potentially?”

“...Anxious.”

“Fair enough.”

“And...a little looking forward to it?” Chandra grimaced. “I’m used to the sort of heroics where I can swoop in and take care of the problem in a couple of days, tops. This one’s been going on for weeks.”

“How do you feel it compares to the faster jobs you’ve had?”

“It’s fine. I’ve had long jobs before. I just...I guess I get frustrated with them more easily. Feels like I’m doing something wrong when it takes so much time. I know some things are out of my hands, it just, this is going to sound stupid; it feels less like heroics and more like work. Is that too whiny to say?”

“No answers too whiny this office. Besides, there’s all sorts of heroics,” Jenezk offered. “The long, mundane trials of life aren’t any less important than the quick and flashy ones, even if they’re not as glamorous. Even if they don’t feel as satisfying in the moment.”

“You sound like my mom,” Chandra grumbled.

“Should I be flattered?”

Chandra snorted. “I guess. My mom’s pretty cool.”

“How was your visit?”

“Good. We made plans for a week from now, ‘cause she was working most of this visit, but we had a few meals together and just...I like that we can just be together now, even if we don’t have anything in particular to do. I like having a mom again.”

“That’s really good, Chandra. And how did you feel about taking a break in general?”

“Uh...I guess it feels surreal. Most of them do. Like, for a day I’m suddenly not worried about dying or protecting anyone and then I’m right back again. I guess...I don’t really fully turn off the anxiety.”

“That’s a very common part of post traumatic stress. Regular stress, even. Especially if you’re still as immersed in the type of life that can cause the stress as you seem to be.” Jenezk paused, and set her pad aside. “How would you feel about a longer rest, after your current job is done?”

“Uh, I guess...I guess that would be good?”

“I think we should plan on one once your current work is done. At least a week, ideally a month.” Jenezk templed her fingers. “Short breaks are important, but a day or two is not nearly long enough for the mind to settle and re-adjust to less...distressing conditions. It’s not enough time for reflection. I’d like you to decide on somewhere by our next session. I trust you have a few options for places that you would find...well, at least more relaxing than...the tenth?”

Chandra lay in silence for a few minutes, watching the clouds make shapes above the skylight. Ghirapur seemed obvious. Maybe she could take mom out of the city somewhere? Regatha might not be bad. Space for meditation. She could check in on Jaya. The old fire-bag probably had plenty to say about relaxing between cataclysms. Maybe…

“Yeah. A few places.”

“What sort of environment do you think would be most conducive to your relaxation?”

“Somewhere out of the city.” Chandra sighed. “Somewhere...well, maybe not quiet, but somewhere with less dangerous pace of life. For a little while.”

“With your mom, maybe?”

“Mmm...I think mom would give me the space I need, I could even go out the greenbelt, maybe. But I think if I go back home I’ll want to spend time with her and she’ll want to take time off to spend with me and I don’t know if that’s really...conducive? To self-reflection and all that?”

“Alright, alone then, we’ll say. Though as you’re planning it I think it would be wise to have someone who you can check in with. Someone who can….follow where you go, I guess. Depending on where you take your rest.”

“Oh, sure...um.” Chandra tapped her thumbs together. “There _was_ someone I wanted to see if I take a longer break.”

“Oh?”

“Uh…Nissa.”

“Why is that?”

Chandra bit her lip.

“There’s no wrong answer,” Jenezk added.

Chandra nodded. Above her, a bird was hopping across the skylight. She watched it make its meandering way from one side to the other, pecking at the lines between the panels.

“I’ve been trying the mindfulness exercises we talked about. Like, whenever I get the chance. Between work and meals and sleep. The breathing stuff, the being present. Some of the exercises I learned on Regatha too...Jaya really knew what she was talking about; I wish I’d realized that more when I was younger… “Chandra closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, then exhaled. “...But between the meditations, even during them, I keep thinking about her. And I’m remembering how much I _like_ thinking about her, but it’s still all muddled up in everything I said to her and all the things _wish_ we’d said to each other. I...I really think I need to talk to her. To help the meditations, but...I don’t think whatever we’ll have to talk about will be an easy conversation, or a quick one, and I’d like to commit the time to be with her for a while if I’m going to have that conversation with her.”

“Understandable,” Jenezk said, lips pursed thoughtfully. “If Nissa is agreeable to you staying with her, of course.”

“Right, definitely.” Chandra nodded, hair grinding against the pillow under her head. “I wouldn’t impose on her or anything, but...I don’t know. I guess I like the thought of seeing her now.”

“Part of recovery is finding people and places to surround yourself with who bring you peace. If you think Nissa can help there, and if she’s able and willing to, I think that’s a fine use of your time.”

“Is that right though? To use her as a way for me to be at peace?”

“Well, any relationship is at its core what we can do for one another. Not just material things, but our presence. Whether we can offer a good presence for one another. If you can offer to Nissa company that she wants to have, I don’t think you have to worry about it being an inequitable relationship.”

Chandra bit her lip.

“Do you expect her to solve the challenges you’re facing right now?”

“No...I guess...I just think that mending bridges with her is one of the challenges I need to...overcome? Work on?”

“Working on a relationship is good.”

“If I can,” Chandra said. “If she doesn’t hate me.”

Jenezk nodded, a small motion Chandra just barely caught out of the corner of her eye. “We can’t always count on a welcome reception to our overtures. “We can only try. Offer our honest feelings and, ideally, honest efforts to do better.”

“I don’t know if I even deserve that chance.” Chandra crossed her arms over her stomach. “I basically told her I didn’t think we were a fit for each other and then disappeared for months.”

“I think blaming yourself for pushing Nissa away is counterproductive. It doesn’t sound like you did it to be malicious, and it’s absolutely not unexpected behavior for someone suffering from post traumatic stress. The decisions made may seem rational at the time, but they can very easily just be self-destructive, or at least unproductive. It’s important that you take the time to evaluate the decisions you’ve made in those conditions and re-evaluate whether they were truly in your best interest, but you can forgive yourself for acting rashly.” Jenezk gestured at Chandra with her palm up. “Now, if you want to apologize _for_ pushing her away, I think that’s perfectly fine, especially if you think it hurt her. But...there should be an understanding between the two of you of how you felt at the time. A discussion. But it sounds like you’re willing to do that?”

Chandra nodded. “She’s worth that to me.”

“Good. She should know that.”

“...I’m trying to think of a way to say this to her without sounding like a complete cornball.”

Jenezk laughed, soft. “However you’re comfortable saying it. Just remember, it’s better to be earnest than to sound cool.”

“Yeah, I guess...I feel like she deserves something cool though. She-” Chandra stopped short, needing a breath, unexpectedly. “-she really means a lot and, like you said, she should know that?”

“Well, what would you want to tell her?”

“Mm...that I want to spend time with her again? That I think…I think even if it’s only once in a while, and even if it’s hard to do, that I want us to be in each other’s life again. I want her to know how important that is, that I can be there for her. She’s just one of the most...one of the kindest, most well, meaning people that I’ve ever met and...and that I look at the whole world differently when she’s in it...that she...that she made me afraid to die and-” Chandra cut off again. She needed to swallow something welling up.

Jenezk blinked. “How...do you mean?”

Chandra took a breath. “I...I think I’ve lived really recklessly for a long time. I didn’t _want_ to die or anything. I’m not suicidal. But I was...I don’t know, living without prioritizing myself. Like, I wanted to do things. To better myself, to help people, but I didn’t really think much one way or another if I lived through the danger. I had a sense of...of self preservation, but it wasn’t usually the first thing I had in mind.”

“And...that changed?”

“Sort of? I guess...damn, this sounds stupid. I...I’ve always had a lot to live for. I like being alive, but...there was a time when I just wasn’t really thinking about the consequences of the dangerous life I lived. And then this woman comes along and suddenly...suddenly I’m worried constantly about dying because that means I can’t be in the same world as her anymore; I can’t be in the world with her smile, and her gentle hands, and...and just all the peace and sweetness that she brings into the world.”

Jenezk pursed her lips. “And how do you feel now?”

“There’s a lot more now.” Chandra coughed. The corners of her eyes were tearing up. “Um...Mom, of course, but...you know, I’ve been talking with a lot of people. Ajani. Jace, again. And...I want to live for all of them. Again, it’s not like I was suicidal and I just stopped being but.” The tears came loose and spilled down her cheek. “She was the first thing. The first person since I was a kid that really made me feel rooted and wanted for something other than what I could do.”

“There’s no bad reason to want to live, Chandra.” Jenezk’s hand was next to her, holding out a cloth. Chandra took it and pressed it to her face. “Other people, your own self, even wanting to help people. They’re all valid. You have a lot to offer the world, but that’s not what defines your worth.”

“I know you know you have worth, but it’s important that you _believe_ so as well.”

Chandra nodded. When she opened her eyes again, the sun made spears of light through her tears. “I believe it. I believe it, and I want to live like I believe it.”

“You’ve been doing well,” Jenezk said, softly. “You’re prioritizing your well-being. You’re reconnecting with friends. It’s all small steps, but you’ve been making them.”

“Mm.” Chandra pressed the cloth against her forehead. “She’s also really pretty.”

“Hm?”

“Nissa.” Chandra laughed, and more tears fell on her cheeks. “Like, ridiculously pretty. isn’t that dumb? Crying over a pretty girl?”

“Nothing ridiculous about it.” Jenezk sat back in the stool. “if it makes you cry, it makes you cry.”

Jenezk let her cry in peace for a few minutes longer. Chandra brought her breathing back to a regular, ragged in and out. More birds had gathered on the skylight, their heads darting back and forth as they chirped and preened.

* * *

Lavinia’s contact reached out a week later. At her direction, and with Vraska’s blessing, a small team gathered at Jace’s old residence, which Chandra and Samut hastily organized to accommodate planning.

“We’re meeting this evening for the intel hand-off,” Lavinia announced as soon as the door was closed on the last member of the team. Zamosk and Myc had come, the latter finally recovered from his head wound. Weird A was there as well, with P and K keeping watch on the street outside. “Undercity, outside the secret performer’s entrance to the Juri revue. Teysa has a line on several sites the Dimir are keeping tabs on, so with any luck this will narrow the list down to something manageable.”

“Is the news on an attack tonight?” Myc asked.

“Possibly. All I know right now is that she has news.”

“And you need a team for that?” Zamosk scoffed, looking around the room.

“I do, and Vraska was the one who volunteered you, so I’d appreciate it if we skip the part of this conversation where you argue with me over the importance of being cautious."

Zamosk put her hands up. “Alright, little human. Don’t get your cowl in a twist.”

“What _do_ you need from us?” Samut cut in.

“In the usual course of things I would just _meet_ with my contact, but now that we might be tracked by Dimir agents or Orzhov spies or Isperia-knows-what, I need backup to make sure I don’t disappear into the undercity without a trace.” The annoyance on Lavinia’s face spiked for a split second. “For what it’s worth, I wish I could do this one solo as much as you do.”

Myc smirked from his spot by the window, perched up on a stack of books. “Don’t you have a whole squad of arresters for that sort of thing?”

“Again, in the normal course of things.” Lavinia collapsed into an armchair, which released a small cloud of dust. “But with my guild not officially endorsing any investigation into the Dimir at this time, I’m working solo.”

“Not solo,” Weird A gurgled. “Just in better company.”

Midnight found them all loitering around a busy undercity intersection, spread up and across the street. Ravnicans pushed past them in groups of threes and fours, mostly laborers out enjoying a drink or looking forward to the show. They laughed roughly, and jostled one another as they went by, but all seemed to be in good humor.

“Feeling ready?” Samut whispered to Chandra. They were leaned up against the wall in worker’s clothing, trying their best to look like two gals out on the town. Lavinia was sitting nearby on the lip of a small public fountain, looking surprisingly innocuous in guildless robes, her face half-obscured by one of the demon-crafted masks popular with theatre-goers. Zamosk and Myczil were seated next to her on the fountain, keeping people from stopping to inspect Lavinia too closely with a mild display of public affection Chandra was mostly certain wasn’t an act.“Sure, if there’s anything going on even.” Chandra eyed Samut sidelong. “You?”

“Ready.”

Chandra nodded, watching the crowd for anyone who might be watching _them_. Weird A and its companions were at each end the streets that converged on the intersection, but, as Myczil had warned, someone who looked innocuous on one end of a street could turn sinister in a few paces on Ravnica.

“Hopefully this is the last of them,” Chandra offered, after a while. “The last of the eternals, I mean. Whatever these guys have planned next.”

Samut nodded, lips pursed.

“I mean, there could only have been so many, right? It’s not like there was an endless supply to begin with.”

“Not helping,” Samut whispered.

“Right, sorry.” Chandra glanced at the entrance to the revue, an unassuming door at the wedge between two streets that was completely unremarkable except for a faint yellow glow and the plump devil who was only pretending to sleep above the door frame. “I’m a little nervous.”

“It doesn’t show,” Samut said, a faint smile on her lips.

“Oh whatever.” Chandra rolled her eyes. “It’s not like – uh, whoa.”

Myczil had suddenly reached up and kissed Zamosk right on the side of her lips. Zamosk responded immediately, seizing his shoulders and pulling him in closer into a very… _bold_ display of mutual public affection.

“Well, uh...that’ll keep attention off Lavinia for sure,” Chandra whispered, grinning. Samut nodded, but was covering her face, shoulders shaking with a silent laugh.

“Hey, c’mon we’ve gotta watch the street.”

“Right, right.” They composed themselves, and exchanged looks with a suddenly very uncomfortable looking Lavinia. “That’s...that’s really sweet, actually.”

“Yeah.” Chandra glanced up the street. Sure enough, more than a few passers-by were distracted by the troll and the half-elf, one older woman actually craning her neck around to watch them after she passed, and cackling to her companion, a white-robed minotaur, as they disappeared into the crowds of the tenth.

“Look.” Samut’s voice had a slight urgency to it. “Danger?”

Two blood witches were strolling up the street that led up from the undercity. One strode straight down the center of the street, a long skirt of swords jangling and clipping at her long, scarred legs. Her predatory smile contrasted with the wide-eyed grin of the other, who zig-zagged in front of her companion, juggling five diamond-shaped blades above her head.

“Contacts.” Chandra’s eyes darted back along the street to the fountain, then up the path that led into the tenth. The imps singing love ballads from the clotheslines of barbed wire, the concessions vendor selling fried...toads? Crabs? None of them seemed more alarmed by either of the newcomers than by any of the other entertainers. “I think. They’re blood witches. The one in the back...that's Exava.”

The juggling witch gave a holler, and tossed all five of her knives up into the air, to the gasp of a few passer-bys. She somersaulted forward, landing on her tip-toes, and caught each knife between her fingers as they rained down on her.

“Heya folks! Who’s ready for the shows tonight?”

A few of the people on the street hooted. One goblin clapped his hands together and said something in a language Chandra didn’t understand.

“Keen! Well howzabout some warm-up acts?” The witch waved her hands across her face, and five more knives materialized between her fingers. She tossed them up into the air and caught them all in a stack. More passers-by cheered.

Behind her, Exava strode past, and seated herself with a clatter on the lip of the fountain, right next to Lavinia. If she noticed or recognized Chandra from their fight in the streets months ago, she gave no sign of it. Chandra eyed the windows along the opposite side of the street, but even the few shopkeepers and residents who were leaning out of their homes were paying attention to the juggling witch.

“Alright, alright; tonight, folks, you’ve got the one, the only, razor-to-blood witch Hekara returning to the streets with her keen-edged knife extravaganza!” The juggling witch bounced several blades off the cobblestones. They ricocheted from the road to the sides of the street, and spun in the air back towards her juggled blades. Hekara caught each of them and kept them moving, her hands almost impossible to follow. She glanced at Chandra and Samut, and gave them a big wink.

“Ladies! Ladies! Ladies!” Hekara kept eye contact with them even as she added two more blades to her juggling bit. “How’d you like a tiny knife demonstration?”

“Uh, sure?”

“Keen.” The witch grinned and flicked one of her fingers. Chandra felt a tap on her boot just as Samut drew her sword and hit something out of the air.

Chandra looked down. At the front of her boots, embedded barely a millimeter into the leather, was the smallest little knife she’d ever seen in her life, maybe the size of a bee’s stinger.

“Yowza. Classic blade gag. Howdya like to see a real BIG knife trick this time?”

“Uh, pass.” Chandra reached down to pick it up, and, glaring at the witch, melted the blade between her fingers.

The witch shrugged. “Your loss, hot stuff. Any other takers?”

Just past Hekara, the other blood witch was leaning over, whispering in Lavinia’s ear, but the hooting and cheering crowd that had grown around them was much too loud for anything they said to be made out. Behind Lavinia, Zamosk and Myczil had managed to separate their faces, but still each had an arm around the other as they watched the crowd.

Exava’s own hand had snaked up behind Lavinia’s back and was resting on her shoulder, fingers tapping the clothing there. Lavinia made no move to remove it, but, after about a minute, placed her own hand on top of it to still the drumming fingers. The fingers interlaced over the course of the minute that followed, and then the witch was no longer whispering in Lavinia’s ear but they were speaking face to face, their foreheads almost pressed together and Chandra suddenly realized she hadn’t been watching the street for almost two minutes and tore her eyes away, cheeks slightly warm.

“That’s, uh...not just for cover, is it?” Samut whispered.

“Women...” Chandra whispered back. “I mean...uh, no. I guess not.”

Samut _tsk-_ ed “What’s that word Teysa used? Unprofessional?” She shook her head, but was clearly smirking herself.

“I’m hard-pressed to criticize,” Chandra said, covering a small laugh with her hand, and doing a quick glance up and down the street. Everyone nearby was distracted by the juggling blood-witch, and everyone else entering the intersection seemed eager to get further below for the show, or further up out of the undercity before it began.

Lavinia was nodding now, whispering back to Exava. Chandra could make out a quick ‘thank you’ on her lips, muttered in between pauses.

Exava grinned and lunged the distance between their faces, wrapping Lavinia’s mouth in a kiss. Their joined hands tightened around each other, and Lavinia’s free hand was suddenly in Exava’s hair, fingers disappearing into the tight curls.

Chandra and Samut managed to not yell out, but smacked each other several times in the side as they suppressed grins.

Exava rose, trailing a finger along Lavinia’s jaw, and spun on her heel, heading off towards the side entrance. The devil registered her passage with a slow blink. Hekara seemed to note Exava’s departure and took a bow.

“Come on down for the full show, folks! The tickets are cheap but the memories are forever. So are the scars!” She giggled, threw her knives up into the air, and somersaulted backwards after Exava. The crowd shielded their faces and cried out, but the knives never came back down.

Lavinia stared at the doorway for several seconds before shaking her head and shooting three quick glances down the streets. Then she elbowed Zamosk in the back and leapt up from the fountain, heading back up the street. Samut and Chandra peeled off the wall and hurried after her. Zamosk and Myczil followed a moment later, not exactly rushing to disentangle themselves. They caught up with Chandra and the others halfway to the next intersection.

“Did we secure the information?” Samut asked, with a heroic attempt at a straight face. “Did we accomplish the stealth? Did we get the kisses?”

Myczil acted like he couldn’t heard. Zamosk stuck her tongue out at Samut from the corner of her mouth.

“Yes, actually.” Lavinia looked remarkably composed for someone with a face the color of an under-ripe cherry. “Two hours, the new aqueducts four blocks east of the guild promenade. Exava’s contacts are quite sure.”

“Ah, is that it?” Samut’s teeth were peeking out from her grin. “She must have said it several times for how long you were talking. To make sure you memorized it, I’m sure.”

Chandra elbowed Samut. “She’s being efficient. Multitasking. Locking lips while she locks down the intel.”

“We. Are. On. A. Mission.” Lavinia’s jaw was set. She swept past Weird A, who was leaned up against an alleyway at the end of the street, cloaked and wrapped to look like an ogre beggar. “We’ve got what we need.”

“Rolling out,” Weird A gurgled into a metal disk in its hand. Two distinct gurgles responded. “Do we have a job tonight?”

“We do.” The glow on Lavinia’s face was fading, but a smile, rigid and grim as her scowl, was slowly forming.

* * *

Ravnica’s waterworks were impressive by the measure of every plane Chandra had visited. Ghirapur’s were better designed, but did not bear the burden of supplying nearly as large a population or geographic sprawl that Ravnica boasted. Aretopolis’ system was better regulated, but not nearly as efficient. Chandra had spent the past few weeks vaguely impressed by the sprawling network of pipes and reservoirs in the undercity, but the Izzet water purification station was something else entirely. The whole building lit up the night with neon strobes of red and blue, lining the pipes, walls, and entryway. The whole building crackled with the harnessed lightning that powered the turbines inside, which roared load enough to be heard half a block away.

But most impressive were the hundreds of pipes, made of crystal and steel bands, that poured out in every direction, filling the adjacent streets before disappearing into the streets, like the tentacles of some massive mechanical kraken. It was behind one of these pipes, wider than Chandra was tall, that she now crouched with Samut and Lavinia.

“Ral Zarek has evacuated all but a skeleton crew of workers,” Lavinia explained, eyeing the main entry way. A lone pyrohydric weird stood guard, looking remarkably bored for a creature with no discernible face. “Your goblin friend, Crix...her Gruul contacts staged an attack on a facility north of the tenth and we moved as many staff as we could to that facility under the guise of emergency work.”

“So they actually did cut water to other parts of the city?” Samut whispered back.

“Only for the night.”

Samut frowned, but nodded. Chandra leaned out of the alleyway they had huddled in to check up and down the street. “So now we wait?”

Lavinia nodded. “We wait. Ral will raise an alarm if anyone forces an intrusion from inside the plant, and Jace will contact me if his team see anyone from the west entrance.” She spoke calmly and clearly, without taking her eyes off the building. “Exava was confident the attack was coming tonight, but what they’re actually planning, I have no idea.”

“Every guild is in the business of intelligence to some degree,” Lavinia replied, not taking her eyes off the gate. “Even if the Dimir are best at it. Exava has connections with performers who entertain all levels of Ravnican society. They hear things, they coax things out of clients and fans, and they keep tabs on undercity movements to make sure they keep their turf safe from expansion by other guilds. Exava is...” Lavinia paused, pursing her lips. “...Exava is very good at listening for patterns in the information. Guessing where trouble is brewing. Part of what’s kept her alive.”

Chandra exchanged a look with Samut. “So...we’re kinda doing this on her hunch?”

“Her hunches are very good.”

Chandra studied Lavinia for a moment. “Sure. Good enough for me.”

Samut sniffed, but nodded. A small trickle of electricity ran down her calf. Chandra might have worried about the sound breaking their stealth, but with how loud and bright and colorful the plant was…

_Ral’s shouting in there._ Jace’s voice cut the low roar of machinery with a cool urgency. _Whatever’s happening, it’s happening now. Moving in with Zamosk and Myc._

They were up and out of the alley in an instant, Chandra’s fists igniting, Lavinia’s sword out and glowing with white triangular halos of Azorius hieromancy. Samut kept even with them at a jog, though lightning was building in her heels in preparation for a sprint.

“This has to go smooth,” Lavinia hissed. “In quick. Assess quick. Strike quick. We can’t afford any distractions or sloppiness on this one.” Her eyes lingered just a second longer on Chandra than on anyone else, which Chandra gracefully decided not to comment on.

Samut drew her swords. “I am quick incarnate.”

“Alright. Chandra, take the doors. The rest of us will follow through once their down after that-”

“Chandra?”

They stumbled to a stop, turning as one to face down the street. Three figures were striding out of the shadows. Two pale humans(?) in leather, brown and shiny black respectively, and another, right behind them-

Nissa.

“Chandra!” There was the smile. The smile that made Chandra forget entirely where she was and why. “I...I was wondering if we could talk?”


End file.
